


deep black wild

by mrhiddles



Series: Personal Favorites [15]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Cults, Alternate Universe - Human, Blood and Violence, Coming of Age, Emotional Baggage, Gun Violence, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Kink, Slow Build, Spanking, Suspense, Travel, more info in author's note, poor thor is bruised almost through this entire thing sorry my guy, there's a lot of humor I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-07 18:31:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16413623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhiddles/pseuds/mrhiddles
Summary: Thor is the leader of a cult in the wilds of Norway. Loki knows Thor has what he needs. He finds himself swept up in the chaos of nature, violence, and the evil of man.-“We’re not friends,” Loki informed him.Thor let him go with a smile.-For the 2018 Thorki Big Bang!50K+ | complete





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Interlude / The Ends of the Earth by Luca Fogale.
> 
> Listen to the playlist here: https://8tracks.com/mrhiddles/deep-black-wild-thorki-cult-au#
> 
> The accompanying art for this fic was done by the lovely kamthe! You can see their art here: http://kamthe.tumblr.com/post/179444141366/im-participating-in-thorki-big-bang-this-year-and (it's beautiful and I love it!)
> 
> This is not an El Royale AU! I was planning on writing a cult au before the first trailer released and I haven't seen the film. So keep that in mind if you're looking for that.
> 
> Something possessed me in the last few days in the form of the last 20k. I've never fallen into a story like this before and it means a lot to me. I feel like a completely different person from when I started it. I might make it a much longer original manuscript next year.
> 
> Also, if anyone ever wants to ask me questions about my fic, I'll answer on my Tumblr @ mrhiddles.
> 
> This fic is done. It's just shy of 50k. I'll be updating every day for the next ten days until it's completely uploaded. After that I'll be finishing up Monday! All comments will be replied to. Let me know what you think!
> 
> Edit: It's now over 50k and complete!

Loki had always been called pretty.

It had started when he was a toddler, waddling around the covered legs of his mother and being shoved out of the way by his father’s rough hands. His aunt would call him the prettiest little baby on the planet and his mother would laugh too loud, a nervous jump in her throat because her husband was watching from afar.

There were plenty of nicer looking babies out there, of course, he just happened to have the luck of being born to bad parents. It made the compliments come easier when out in public, when people were hard at work searching for something nice to say to detract from the way his mother ignored Loki and his siblings, not bothering to excuse herself before she got up and left to shoot up in the nearest restroom stall, his father off to the side pretending he never had a family to begin with.

Loki was a pretty baby. He was.

His mother would weep into her son’s hair when he was eight, something he always thought normal until the other boys at school said their moms never cried. Loki stopped sharing after that.

In middle school, Loki decided to keep his hair short because Helblindi would call him names, his favorite being _faggot_. Five days after he turned twelve he stole his mother’s scissors and chopped it off. It was so bad that the next day the scary girl with wild hair, Sif, had dragged him into the girl’s bathroom to fix it herself, making him look more human and less street dog. Sif would say he was pretty in the eyes, always in that direct no-nonsense way of hers. Loki ignored her and kept his hair short for years.

In high school, Helblindi had upgraded from the occasional laughed insult to shoves and kicks in the hallways when their father wasn’t looking. Loki could hear the beatings at night. It was months before he realized he was an outlet. His emotionally withdrawn brother was taking out his frustrations the only way he knew how.

Loki took out his frustrations on ants in the bathtub. The foundation of their home was shaky at best, surely riddled with cracked cement. The ants came every summer like clockwork and always through the tile of the bathroom. He’d play a game with them. Drown them with fat drops of bathwater only to let them wander a ways, thinking they were safe, before drowning them all over again. Rinse and repeat. It got old fast.

When he was sixteen, he fought. Fought so much the knuckles on one hand were permanently displaced. He’d gone to the ER so much he’d learned how to set them back himself. Hogun showed him how to fight in the first place. Told him about the Jiu Jitsu classes he took after school four days a week. Loki tried it as a tag along for a couple weeks, but it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t enough he couldn’t draw blood. So Hogun had introduced him to some of the shadier people from school. Amora showed him how to break an arm. How to realign a snapped nose. He spent a lot of sleepless nights with bloody fists in the streets and it was better, so much better than being at home.

He also drank, a lot. Preferred it to drugs. Smoke never agreed with him and harder stuff and needles especially reminded him of his mother, so he stuck to whiskey mixed in cans of soda and called it good. Sif drank with him but not enough she couldn’t drive or speak the four languages she knew if she ever needed to. (Who needed to know Russian, German, and French on top of English by seventeen?) And it was always easier for her to bully the customer service into selling her whiskey, and cigarettes. Loki always had problems with that part, tricking people into thinking he was older than he was.

But the drinking part he was very talented in. It let him forget for a while, especially when paired with the hasty fucks he schemed with other boys in his classes he knew weren’t out, like him. In the backs of cars, in the loft of Sif’s childhood treehouse (because she was a lovely person like that, to let him use it now and again), in the underwatered baseball pitch behind the math building. It was easier that way. Easier to pretend he was anyone, anything other than what he was when he was inside someone else.

Sif tried kissing him once, after the first fight he ever had, but it just wasn’t the same. They fit better as partners in crime than anything _more_ , and he never had a problem with that. But Sif had told him he looked like he was searching for something, that there wasn’t anything there, when they kissed.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just because I prefer dick, but if you say so,” he’d told her, grinning her way.

But she’d shaken her head and shoved the half empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s at him. “I don’t mean the _spark_ you get when you like someone. I mean there’s nothing there, when you kiss. It’s like you could be chewing gum or stapling paper together. Just…nothing there, inside you.”

She was drunk already so Loki tried not to take it to heart.

But he’d still punched her in the breast and she’d nearly gouged out his eye in reply, the both of them howling in drunken pain and laughter by the time the sun started creeping up over the green hills in the distance. Then she took him home.

Maybe Loki hadn’t argued it because he’d suspected the same, many times before.

In college things were different.

He’d been living with Sif for over a year by the time he met Clint in his culture studies course. Barely a semester into college and only nineteen, Loki had been enraptured with the older man. He was thirty-five, sandy-blond, had a motorcycle, and was funny. But Clint wasn’t gay, and Loki had been out for a while, so when Clint called him pretty one night after a few shots Clint bought them all at one of the _nice_ bars—Loki just leered at him in that way that made Clint roll his eyes all the time, like he knew Loki’s tricks. The three of them got along very well. Thick as thieves, even though Sif was becoming busier and busier with her own engineering courses, so they saw her less and less (Clint especially, since Loki was her roommate). But they always tried to have a bar night twice a month where the three of them could vent to each other.

And then like a tsunami, big, loud, and all chaos rushing forward to overtake everything in its path, only to sweep everything treasured back out into itself, came Natasha.

And Clint liked Natasha. He liked her a lot.

Natasha was all poise. Natasha was patient, and rarely spoke above a gentle cadence. Natasha was from Southern California. She’d been teased for her red hair until she was fifteen. Natasha could dance. Natasha could sing. Natasha liked to make soap, but she wasn’t very good at it. Natasha knew how to shoot a gun.

That’s what Clint had told him.

Natasha wasn’t enrolled in classes where they went. From what Loki could tell, she wasn’t enrolled in college at all. She was a slinky little thing that rolled into the bar one night in a red dress and ordered a round and had Clint practically shoving his nose on the floor for her scent within an hour. She’d smiled, in some clever wicked way and cupped Clint’s chin and Loki knew he’d likely lose his other friend soon enough too.

But Natasha always made a point to hang around, to ask questions about their homework and hang out in the library when they studied. She’d have Clint check out six books at a time and have them back, earmarked and read in a week, ready for more. Loki didn’t know why she’d not already enrolled, it would have been easier to declare a major and go from there.

“I’m here for a lot of reasons,” she’d said, eyes dark. She had grabbed Loki’s hand one night in the bar they frequented and Clint, usually jealous of others around the women he dated, even of Loki, had just smiled in a dreamy sort of way. “What reason do you want me to be here for?”

Loki had blinked, gathered his things and retreated back to Sif’s home as fast as he could. The shots she’d ordered for their table that night still hadn’t been enough to shake the memory of her piercing eyes.

Natasha terrified him.

Natasha had secrets.

And, as he’d lain in bed that night, his thoughts wandered. Hooked by that delicate little curve her lips always had when she was thinking. Maybe Natasha had a reason for him. A reason he hadn’t found for himself yet.

And really, that’s what started this whole thing.

\--

Natasha was at Sif’s door the next morning as Loki was just making breakfast. Sif had stayed over at another girl’s dorm to finish a project they were presenting later that week. He was in his favorite pair of black jeans and one of Sif’s old shirts—something metal-related he was sure.

Loki only opened the door when he saw her because he saw Clint just behind her scanning the trees. He may have not really liked Natasha, but Clint was still one of his only good friends and that dreamy look he carried these days scared him. He didn’t want to lose one of the only people who didn’t judge him for the things he got up to.

“What?” Loki asked them as he’d opened the door. Natasha had a gentle smile on her face. Like she knew everything that Loki wished he knew. And he hated that.

“May we come in?” she asked.

Loki started to shake his head, no, when he caught Clint’s glare aimed at him. He sighed and stepped aside.

But Natasha stayed where she was, not crossing the doorway.

“What, are you a vampire? Need to be invited in verbally?” he snapped.

She laughed, and it was such a pleasant sound, it really was. He wasn’t swayed even as he saw Clint’s face dissolve to a lopsided smile at the sound of it.

“Though the idea of it appeals to the horror fan in me, I’m afraid not. I don’t want to cross your boundaries, so if you’d rather not,” she offered an upturned palm, “Fine.” She smiled again, and Loki felt his fingers slip where they held the doorknob. “I was worried when you left last night so suddenly.”

Unlikely. “Why?” Loki asked instead.

“I can get too serious for my own good when I get alcohol in me. And I’m downright unbearable with shots, Clint says. I just wanted to apologize if I made you feel uncomfortable at all.” Her eyes were hooded, and Loki wondered how long it took before Clint told her _I love you_ because of that look. They’d been dating not even a month, had known her for hardly two. “And I wanted to invite you out for a trip!”

“A trip?”

She nodded very slow, giving him a look like she thought he was stupid. “Yeah. Clint and Sif are coming, but I didn’t get the chance to ask you last night. I want to show you all where I work.”

Loki remembered Clint mentioning Natasha worked on some sort of farm or something part time during a lecture. He barely remembered the conversation, but remembered the lecture topic even less, it had been so boring.

He didn’t have class until that evening, so he thought, why not?

“Let me grab my coat,” he said, turning his back on Natasha’s slow smile.

\--

“I thought you said she was a dancer,” Loki commented as they trekked the long muddy path to the farm. “Or a singer?”

It had been almost two hours of driving north of New York before Natasha had lit up, banging her hand on the steering wheel excitedly as she turned down a dirt road. From there, it was another twenty minutes of walking and Loki was already sick of the place.

Clint laughed, short and loud. “She does ballet a few times a week, and she has one hell of a voice, but she works here.”

Loki nodded, watching as Sif and Natasha spoke quietly ahead of them. “Have you been to this farm?”

“A few times. Just…have an open mind, okay? These guys can seem a little hippie-dippy but trust me. They’re good folk. I like ‘em.”

Loki wasn’t particularly a fan of the way his nice leather boots were currently sloshing through the wet mud beneath them but he huffed anyway, acquiescing to whatever he was about to suffer through. He wasn’t a fan of the 60s, more an 80s kid, but he figured it wouldn’t be so bad.

\--

It was bad.

“It’s bad,” he whispered to Sif in a rush.

Sif glanced at him and he caught the barest shake of her head, telling him to shut up. He did and watched as the bearded demonstrator snapped the neck of the chicken in front of them, slicing its thin little neck with a razor fast to bleed out in a tin bucket at his feet. Then the man set to plucking the thing like he was reading the newspaper.

Loki felt nauseous and turned away, not caring what anyone else thought of him. He hated the small _snap_ and the sound of its blood hitting metal. He could smell it in the air.

He loved to fight, sure, but beating the shit out of a willing opponent in the middle of the night to get your kicks was a hell of a lot different than killing a defenseless animal so nonchalantly.

Natasha came up next to him and surprised him by rubbing a comforting hand on his upper back. He closed his eyes, not wanting to hear what she’d likely start to taunt him with.

“I threw up when I saw it for the first time. Cows are worse.”

He threw her a cautious look, and from the way she was looking at him he couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth. He doubted much of anything bothered Natasha, ever.

“I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much. I got through Willy Wonka as a kid.” Her laugh was quiet and sing-song. He took a deep breath and focused on each pass of Natasha’s comforting hand. “I guess it just reminded me of my father.”

Loki tensed, wanting to take the words back, but Natasha’s hand was steady, never stopping. Distantly, he realized the others had been summoned to the bucket to finish prepping the chicken for dinner themselves.

Natasha hummed. “Clint doesn’t know this about me, not yet. But when I first came here, I was constantly reminded of the boarding school I was sent to abroad. It was hell. They’d go so much farther than rapping our knuckles with a ruler when we were bad. It’s where I learned to dance.” She blinked, switching her gaze to the rocky grass they stood on. “Sometimes, we’re forced to bleed for longer than we can stand. And just when we think we’re about to break, we keep going. We adapt. We go on longer than we ever thought we could. They taught me about my life. Taught me how much I was willing to hold on to it.” She brought her stare back to him, and he saw something like fury in her eyes. “Suffering isn’t useful unless you need something from someone else. Survival has no room for suffering. We do what we must to survive. Living off the land in a way where we take only what we must, when we need it; it has to be quick. That animal didn’t suffer before it died. It served a purpose. And in its purpose, we love it. We honor it.”

Loki blinked and sucked in a breath, not realizing he’d been holding it. He wasn’t nauseous anymore, and Natasha patted his back a few times, reassuring him.

“We are all animals, Loki. We all serve a purpose. And when surrounded by the right people, we are each loved and honored.”

Natasha gently coaxed him to standing again, and she didn’t seem bothered in the slightest when he held her hand weakly.

She smiled softly at him and wiped a thumb across his cheek. Only then did Loki realize he’d been crying.

\--

“I think I want to be a cop,” Clint announced an hour later. They’d settled in for an early dinner, Loki keenly aware of the class he would most likely end up missing.

He didn’t really care.

The chicken they’d prepared had turned out delicious, and Loki had been thinking on what Natasha had said to him ever since he’d taken her hand in his.

Natasha gave Clint a look like she couldn’t believe it and shot Loki a roll of her eyes. He laughed.

Natasha was alright.

“You’re being insane,” Sif told him around chewing. “Is that why you skipped class last Friday?” Clint’s grin was answer enough.

“Not all cops are bad. But she does have a point. You can’t trust anyone these days,” Natasha chimed in in that soft way of hers.

Sif slowly spun her beer on its edge before smiling coldly. “Much appreciated. _Bol'shoye spasibo, Lyubov'_.”

Natasha’s stare hardened, and Loki felt uncomfortable with the change in the air.

“Why a cop?” Loki asked Clint quickly.

Clint reached out to the center of the table and spooned more veggies onto his plate.

“Culture studies is interesting, man, but I don’t think it’s for me,” he said, giving Loki a withering look. Loki understood it. He kept his own grades up, but it was more boring than anything else.

“And, uh, I may have already applied,” Clint muttered.

Natasha was quiet beside him, waiting for more. Sif groaned.

“And I may have already passed. Preliminaries anyway.”

“And?” Natasha encouraged.

“Top scores,” he told her, smile smug.

Natasha looked thoughtful while Sif leaned back. She levelled him with a disbelieving slant of her eyes. “You’re telling us you’d rather be NYPD when we could be changing the world?”

“Culture studies only go so far, Sif. Or pays so much. Your degree’ll definitely be more useful than mine will. And besides, who said I don’t want to change the world?”

“Cops these days don’t change shit,” Sif muttered into her food.

“I disagree,” Clint told her, eyes shining. He pointed his fork at her. “It’s good work if you’re not crooked. It’s also a stepping stone.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow and jerked her head at him in a silent question. Clint nodded back, and Loki marveled at their silent conversation.

He’d never been like that with anyone, let alone after two months of knowing them. Not even Sif.

“Intelligence?” she voiced, after a long moment.

Clint bit his lip, laughing when Sif groaned even louder. Loki watched as Natasha kept her eyes trained on Clint’s face. When Sif and Clint launched into an argument, Loki knew he was the only one to see the way her smile faltered.

“Nadine!”

Natasha flashed a sneer for all of a moment before turning around to address the voice. “Natasha. It’s Natasha.”

Loki turned and saw a tall blond man with a moustache that reminded him of dead kings. The man laughed at Natasha’s outburst and hurried over to them, splaying both hands on their table and eyeing them all up. He looked hungry, and happy, his blue eyes laughing.

“New arrivals, always a pleasure! I’m Fandral.”

“You’re Danish?” Loki asked him, curious.

Fandral made a face. “Norwegian, actually. But good guess! Please, please, tell me all of your names!”

They went one by one, Fandral’s eyes lighting up as his gaze danced over them. His eyes settled on Loki and he tilted his head towards Natasha. “This one here not roughing the lot of you up too bad, I hope?”

Past dead chickens, no, he thought. “We’re having a good time.”

“Ah,” Fandral hummed at Loki’s tone. “The chicken?”

“The chicken,” Natasha confirmed.

“And that’s why I’m a vegetarian,” he announced to them, laughing.

From there, the evening passed comfortably into early morning. There was about thirty people on the farm, and they laughed so easily together, it was a strange sight to see. He came from people who didn’t know how to interact. He had two friends, maybe three now with Natasha, that he could tolerate for more than a few hours at a time.

But here, under shining strings of lightbulbs and the quiet chatter of animals shuffling around in their enclosures, of the group of people cooking in the distance, he felt more at peace than he had in a long time.

At some point, a beer had slipped its way into his hand and he’d found himself not even thinking of the class he’d skipped that night, a rarity for him. Sif was already drunk, happy and crooning up at Fandral who leaned on the edge of her chair flirting with her shamelessly. Clint and Natasha were deep in conversation with each other and Loki was…well he was by himself.

But he didn’t feel alone.

Some time later when the first light of day was starting to inch through the dark sky, Loki found himself in a conversation with Fandral, Natasha, and Clint, and two others he’d not caught the names of. They were clearly a couple, comfortably sitting pressed into one another as they listened to Fandral. Their hair was so blond he thought they were related at first. But the way the man was stroking the woman’s hip had Loki shelving that theory.

Most had cleared out for the night, Sif having retreated to sleep on a couch in one of the cabins. Their firepit simmered and crackled and in the low light of dawn, Loki felt pleasantly tired. The kind where your limbs are heavy, and you feel sated, not caring about anything. The beer only helped.

“I’m telling you, it’s gorgeous country,” Fandral insisted, hands waving wide. “The hills and mountains, the fjords. Trees as tall as buildings! Taller! It’s stuff out of legends.”

“I remember cold and rain,” Natasha snorted. The nameless couple chuckled at that in agreement.

“Not the forests. The trees are so thick the forest floor grows foggy and that’s it. It can be raining all around you, but you’d be completely dry!”

“You get too excited, you know that?”

“Natasha, you wound me,” Fandral said in mock hurt. “And Thor makes the best Fårikål I have ever tasted. The man is a genius.”

“The what?” Clint asked him, confused.

“Oh, it is lamb and cabbage stew,” Fandral elaborated, kissing his knuckles. “Very good.”

“I thought you said you were a vegetarian,” Loki said, memory hazy with the alcohol and lack of sleep.

“Did I?” Fandral stared at him, his smile wavering.

“I don’t remember him being a cook. He roasted me an omelet once. That was _interesting_ ,” Natasha said, layering the disgust in her voice before Loki could say anything more. “I’d never had crunchy eggs before.”

“He’s gotten better, let me say that. I can tell you miss him. We all do.” And just like that, Fandral was back to his joyous, carefree self. “How long has it been, Natasha?”

“Three years,” she stated, matter of fact. Clint rubbed her back in support when she looked at him with a sad smile.

Loki had missed something. Where were they talking about? Who was Thor?

“What are you talking about?”

They all turned to look at him. Fandral gasped dramatically. “Norway, of course! The compound that’s sponsoring this farm, it’s settled to the east of the village Sundvollen. A rainy paradise, as Natasha so fondly describes it.”

“What do you do there?” Loki asked, curious. It sounded beautiful.

“We live off the land. We herd sheep, we cook, we commune. It’s a happy little place,” Fandral said into the rim of his beer.

“What do you for money?” Clint asked him.

Fandral and the couple off to the side laughed at that. “Americans,” he sighed. “We trade our produce with Sundvollen when we need certain things, food, animals, medicine, clothes. Though we have a group who’s taken to weaving in the last couple years. They’re quite nice, but a little scratchy in the heat, sheep wool. We tan and cure our own leather, and we brew our own mead and age our own whiskey and wine. We try to put on plays, but it usually ends up in drinking games. We’re very much self-sufficient under Thor’s guidance. But even he can’t figure out how to get internet out there, so the kids go into town for their fix. Now and again one of us will make a trip into the bigger cities for different things, though we of course have plans to provide those rarer things for ourselves in the future.”

“You have kids there?” Loki was surprised to hear it, but why wouldn’t there be?

“Entire families, of course.” Fandral said, moustache twitching. “We have around three hundred residents. You’re confused?”

“No, no it just sounds,” he paused, trying to fight down the sudden melancholy he felt. “It sounds perfect.”

Natasha gave Fandral a look and he nodded gently.

“We’re a family. I miss it every day,” she murmured, squeezing Clint’s shoulder. “I’d give anything to see it again. You’d like it.”

Clint craned his head back and she leaned down to give him an easy kiss. “I’d like to, but class.”

“Yeah, school,” Loki said, his heart not in it.

Truthfully, if this place in Norway was anything like the farm, with its sense of calm and peace and contentment, he wanted to see it. Wanted to know what a whole community was like. If total strangers could come together and call each other family, why couldn’t he be included in that?

Why did it hurt so much to know they’d have to drive back to the city in a few hours, back to college, back to a life he knew he hated? He’d been going through the motions for years. Picked the major he thought would be the simplest. Picked the same bottle of whiskey every Friday, because he knew the exact amount of glasses it would fill to be empty come Monday. He knew his routine, and he cared for his friends, but he felt like something had been missing for some time. A long time.

Just like Sif had told him in high school once, after a drunken kiss.

“Let’s go.”

Natasha locked her piercing stare on him. “Where?” she asked him, though her tone told him she knew exactly where he meant.

“Let’s go to Norway. To Sundvollen,” he said. He finished his current beer and let it thud to the dirt below him. Something bright and electric coursed through him at the idea and he knew nothing would change his decision.

“We have class, man,” Clint reminded him in disbelief. “Are you drunker than you look?”

“You want to be a cop anyway. When does training start?”

“I haven’t accepted the offer yet for the academy, but if I called right now, a month.” Clint straightened in his seat and Natasha rose to stand. There was fire in her eyes and she was trying to hold back a smile.

“You can spare a month then,” Loki told him. “We have up to date passports. Let’s go. I want to see this compound.”

Clint hummed, considering it. Natasha ruffled his hair and kissed his forehead quick when he made a sound of agreement.

Loki met her stare. “It’s settled then.”

Natasha’s grin turned wolfish. “You don’t know how much you’ll fall in love with it. You’ll never want to leave.”

Loki already suspected he might not.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to the playlist here: https://8tracks.com/mrhiddles/deep-black-wild-thorki-cult-au
> 
> Art by the lovely kamthe here!: http://kamthe.tumblr.com/post/179444141366/im-participating-in-thorki-big-bang-this-year-and

“You’re crazy,” Sif half shouted at him when Loki told her his plan.

“Like it’s any more hairbrained than anything else I’ve ever dreamed up?” he shot back. She glared up at him.

It was seven in the morning and Sif was hungover big time. She drew herself up to standing and balanced on Loki’s shoulder only long enough to pull her mud-covered boots on. She grabbed up her thick mane of black curls and tied them away from her face, her flushed cheeks. She was furious.

“You’re fucking insane. Go to Norway? Fly there for a month vacation like it’s no big deal?” She scoffed and shoved him with an open palm. “Do you even hear yourself sometimes?”

Loki bristled, the back of his neck starting to sweat. He knew the consequences. He _did_.

“I’m not a child, Sif.”

She whirled on him. “You’re nineteen, so _yeah_ you actually are. You’re a dumbass if you think any of these people are going to watch your back. In a wild forest, alone with Clint? Not a chance. You two would be torn apart.”

“They’re not cannibals.” Loki shook his head, fighting a smile despite himself.  “He can fight just fine. And you’ve seen me fight, you know I can handle myself.”

“You said, what, three hundred of these hippies running around? You gonna knuckle ‘em all to hell and back?” She shook her head, throwing her gaze to the ceiling with a long sigh before levelling him with a worse glare, jabbing a finger at his chest. “You have no idea what you’ve agreed to, do you? People don’t just live in a commune in the woods. You’re joining a fucking cult.”

Loki shrugged. “More so visiting, actually.”

Sif gaped at him and launched a fist into his bicep. He rubbed it and sighed.

“Look, I’d feel better if you came with me. It’s not like I don’t want to stay too,” he said. “I care.”

“About what?”

“School. You.”

Sif shook her head again, disbelief plain in the tilt of her lips. “Bullshit. You dread class. And you don’t care about anyone but yourself. You won’t come back. And me? We’re best friends, but you bug the shit out of me with stuff like this. You can’t just drop out and run off to join a fantasy world because you stayed overnight on a fieldtrip.”

Loki didn’t argue, because he knew when Sif was like this she’d never listen to anything that was said to her. But she was wrong, and a little right too. He cared about Sif, but this felt _right_. Right in a way he’d never experienced before. He needed to know.

“I need to know,” he whispered when he saw rare tears in her dark eyes.

“Yeah,” she breathed, shaky. “You know when Fandral called her Nadine?” Loki nodded, knowing the moment she meant. “What was that about?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Sif sat back down on the edge of the bed. The cabin was Fandral’s own, a small thing with its own half kitchenette. Its surfaces were covered in wood carvings of sheep in all different sizes and Loki thought it was kind of weird.

Sif sniffed and swore into her hands as she rubbed her face. “I hate this, Loki. It doesn’t feel right. You trust Natasha?”

He blinked and said, “I’m on the fence about her. Maybe more yes than no at the moment.”

“I don’t,” she said, souring. “Ever since she showed up Clint’s been acting strange.”

“That’s called blind love,” Loki told her with a weak laugh.

“Blind being the operative word,” she grumbled. “Just, something’s been off since we met her. It makes my skin crawl whenever she gives me that _look_.”

Loki thought of her secretive smiles and knowing eyes and nodded. Sif wasn’t wrong.

“She told me something yesterday, when we first got here,” he murmured. “And I just feel like what I’ve been looking for might be there, in Norway.”

“With this _Thor_ they keep mentioning? They talk about him like he invented the wheel around here.”

“Maybe he carved one out of cheese, and they being the hippie forest people that they are, didn’t know any better,” Loki mused. “Now it’s too late to back out, so they’re stuck living with him.”

Sif managed a laugh at that. “You know Natasha is Russian, right?”

“What? How do you know?”

“I can tell from the inflections in certain words. She’s been lying to us, Loki. Just be careful. Please?”

Loki leaned into her side, swallowing hard.

Sif picked at her nails in her lap, not looking at him. Some hair had fallen loose and hung in her eyes and Loki could see her lip worried between her teeth. She’d always had the habit of biting her lips bloody if he let her. But he didn’t want to touch her, distract her. He knew what he was asking for was a lot, even if under the pretense of a visit, and nothing more.

Loki knew it was goodbye.

“Of course. I’ll be back before you can miss me,” he lied.

\--

It was a few more hours of hanging around before they headed back to the city.

After breakfast, Fandral had pulled Sif aside to talk. Loki knew his friend well enough to know when she was falling for someone. And Fandral had that easy way about him that he suspected Sif was likely more hurt by the prospect of not seeing Fandral again if they left, than by Loki actually leaving. He hoped, at least, her anger with him would be temporary.

Sif had looked angry, her voice raising above Fandral’s more than once before dropping to something low and quiet that had Fandral ducking close to speak with her. After a while, Loki saw his hands come up to Sif’s shoulders, rubbing them over and over again. Sif had jerked her chin forward, looking at the ground. She’d eventually shrugged him off and pulled out her phone. Fandral stayed close to her the entire time she’d been talking to whoever was on the other line.

“You like kale?” came a voice from behind him.

Loki turned and saw the woman from the night before, with her almost white-blonde hair and cat-like eyes. Her full lips were tilted softly upwards and Loki thought he’d never seen a paler blue than the color of her eyes.

“What?”

“Kale? I’m going to make some breakfast for you all before you head out again,” she told him, happily.

Loki opened his mouth and uttered a very flattering _uhh_ before the woman arched an eyebrow. “You forgot my name, didn’t you?”

Loki offered a weak smile in apology. “Too much beer.”

“Freyja,” she said with a wave of her hand.

“Loki,” he replied. “And I’m not big on the whole kale thing.”

Freyja laughed and shrugged. “Honestly, neither am I. But Frey loves the stuff. He spent a few years in LA and came back a Vegan. I didn’t know what I’d do with him for the longest time. When we go back, I’m sure Thor will tease him senseless about it.”

Loki nodded. He wanted so badly to ask about this Thor. Who he was. Why he was leading a compound of people. How three hundred souls found their way to him in a country so far away.

But instead he asked, “Frey?”

“My brother,” Freyja told him. She caught sight of something over his shoulder and she waved suddenly, face lit up in something like joy. “Speak of the devil, there he is now.”

“What do you want, fiendish woman?” Steps sounded behind them and then the deep lilting voice was matched to the face of the man from the night before. The man who’d been sitting so comfortably beside Freyja, who he thought were lovers.

Siblings, then.

Frey had the same bright hair, startling in the early morning light. His eyes were only just darker than his sister’s. He hugged her before reaching out to shake Loki’s hand. It was a strong grasp, and it left his bones vibrating just barely.

“Is she telling you all my secrets, Loki?” Frey asked him, mischief plain in his expression.

Loki shrugged. “Only some of them. I’m waiting to hear the rest.”

Freyja slapped her brother’s shoulder and then Frey leaned over and pressed a kiss to her lips.

Loki stood very still, watching them. It was not a sibling’s kiss. There was tongue, and flushed cheeks and Loki very carefully cast his eyes around them to gage the other’s reactions. No one seemed to notice, or they didn’t seem to care. People still milled about, doing as they were, going about their individual business. He was sure if Sif had seen, she’d have a choice word or ten about what he was witnessing.

Freyja broke away first, running a hand through her hair to push it behind her shoulders before reaching out to take Loki’s hand. She dragged him along behind her as she led them to the kitchen, Frey following after them, complaining about his empty stomach.

It was a taboo, it wasn’t _right_. But Loki saw the way Frey smiled at his sister as she cooked. Saw the way he held her hand when they ate. Saw the way Freyja leaned into him like she was the safest girl in the world, and maybe she was, next to her brother.

They looked happy. Peaceful.

Loki’s stomach twisted with something he felt like calling jealousy, but it was more than that. It went deeper. Watching them, he felt lonely. Suddenly more lonely than he’d felt in a very long time. But he also felt something close to comforted. Comforted to know that two people were so close, in so many ways, regardless of what anyone else thought. He was happy for them, happy they had each other, lonely for the same reason. Happy they had a place and people they felt safe enough with to be themselves.

Loki knew that with these people, he wouldn’t be judged for anything.

\--

The reverberating whine of a plane soaring overhead had Sif glaring up against the sun as Loki gathered their luggage.

“Don’t say a goddamned word,” was all she’d said when she slapped down two tickets to Norway the day after they came back from the farm.

They’d gone out that night to celebrate. Clint had bumped his fist with hers and bought them a round of drinks. Natasha had been elated, surprising no one more than Sif when she’d drawn her into a quick hug.

“Even if you end up staying for a day,” Natasha had told her. “I know you’ll love your time there.”

Now, Loki was looking out at the far-reaching tarmac, at planes being loaded and unloaded full of passengers, some taking off and some roaring to landing. Sif was still squinting against the sun when she sighed and batted Loki’s hands away to grab her own luggage.

“Fandral better be fucking right,” she muttered darkly to herself as she hustled away. Loki hurried after her, knowing that Sif often didn’t move forward into anything unless there was a reasonable plan laid out beforehand. The trip was last minute for Loki, and nothing less than a shock to his friend, who was using anger to propel herself onward to a country she didn’t know.

But he was happy she’d decided to come.

“What did he say to you exactly?” Loki tried asking her again. So far, she’d refused to tell him.

All he knew was that the phone call he’d seen her have next to Fandral was her talking out the details with her college counsellor. Then the next day had been spent scrambling together a project she needed to finish even earlier than expected and cementing the details of their flights. She’d managed to single-handedly square away a block of time so she and Loki could take a month long break from school. Clint had simply dropped out and planned to be back in just over three weeks to start in the NYPD as a freshly minted trainee. At least they didn’t need to worry about the cost of a hotel and food while they were there.

Fandral had left that morning with Freyja, Frey, and some others Loki hadn’t been introduced to yet. Sif, Clint, Natasha and he were due to fly out in twenty minutes and he’d never been on a plane before. Natasha had teased him lightly when he said the only reason he had an up to date passport was because he and Sif once took a road trip to Cabo San Lucas after high school. All he’d had to show for it was a bad sunburn and a pickpocketed camera with all their pictures on it. Sif had been angry for weeks.

Sif didn’t answer until they were past the gate. Only when they were seated, and Sif noticed how he was fidgeting did she answer him. It took Loki a long moment before he realized what she was answering.

“He called me the night we got back. Said he knew how weird it sounded, but was wanting me to give it a chance. Fandral’s a decent guy. I think.” She turned to Loki and her eyes were shining. “I didn’t want to risk you going and me not being there to back you up if something bad happens.”

Loki nodded and grabbed her hands up, squeezed them tight. “Nothing bad will happen, Sif.”

In the two seats across from them, Natasha was watching the exchange. When she caught their attention, she leaned across the aisle.

“It’s good to doubt. You’ll never be caught off guard that way.”

“You have experience?” Sif asked, for once not sounding like she was annoyed with her, just tired.

Natasha’s smile was sad in a way Loki recognized from that day with the chicken.

“Some.”

Something went dark in Natasha’s eyes, in the way she said it, and it made Loki shiver.

\--

It hadn’t taken Clint five minutes after finding their seats to pass out. He slept most of the flight and Natasha seemed endlessly amused by it. She read two books before they landed, and Loki finally had an answer to how quickly she read.

Sif mostly listened to music and Loki watched a movie—or tried to at least. The view out the window to his left was breathtaking. Made his gut drop to peer down at the water.

It took them a little over eight hours to land in Oslo, and the _drop-pitch-thud_ of the landing had Loki gritting his teeth. It woke Clint up with a loud snort that made Natasha laugh. He glared at her but kissed her on the cheek anyway, stretching his arms languidly.

“Where to now?” Sif questioned loudly.

 _Where to_ turned out to be another hour drive to Sundvollen. So far, all they’d seen of Norway was airports and quiet city streets. The people seemed unhurried in a way New Yorker’s weren’t. In New York, if you weren’t hurrying you were either lost or wanted to get hit by a cabbie too distracted with making their meter run to be worried about a wandering pedestrian. Whether that meant being hit by a bumper, bat, or fist really just depended on the day and what borough you found yourself in, in Loki’s experience.

Loki was anxious to see the winding forest roads and ancient sprawling trees that he’d seen online. The foggy forest floors Fandral had told them all about. It really seemed like the stuff of legends, and he had to believe they were.

He had to.

\--

“Loki. Loki, wake up. We’re here.”

Loki woke with a start, breathing hard and squinting down at the hands gripping his shoulders lightly. He met Sif’s eyes and she was smiling.

He was still sat in the back of the car they’d rented from the airport. His legs were cramped, and he stretched as soon as he clambered out of the small backseat. Sif leaned against the side of it before shutting the door behind him.

“I missed the whole drive? You’re kidding me,” he griped.

Sif shrugged. “Snooze you lose. If it makes you feel better, Clint slept the whole way too.”

“Clint is narcoleptic. I was looking forward to the drive.”

Sif snorted at that and swatted his arm. “Nothing you won’t see on the way back.”

But from the look of things, he had a pretty good idea of some of what he missed.

Some yards away he saw Fandral chatting happily with his friends. They were in a makeshift parking lot, surrounded by dusty cars, and one boat lurking near the front by what looked like a decades-old red Ford pickup. A dirt road spotted with patches of short brown grass fenced by large rocks told him it was onward to the compound, the road behind them just dirt and endless sprawling trees parting only wide enough to lead back out.

The trees _were_ tall as buildings, Fandral hadn’t been joking. Loki had never seen such tall spruces bunched so closely together, and above them all was a grey sky bitter and cold and everything Loki thought it would be. He spied some type of hawk flying above, diving behind the very tip of one tree into a void of green and black and cloudy sky.

Loki’s gaze drifted to the pickup truck again. Caught on the shining black barrel of a rifle tossed on the dashboard in the hazy morning light.

Fandral came over then and clapped Loki on the back.

“Welcome to Bilskirnir!”

\--

“There’s a lot more…goats than I imagined,” Clint commented softly as they walked along.

Fandral chuckled at the statement and cast his arms wide, leading their group into the depths of the compound.

The compound was like the farm, but so much larger. Most of the homes were built on sturdy foundations deep in the ground, the newer lodging spreading out the farther back you went—slowly leading from A-frames to tents beside the foundations for more cabins. The cabins they were led to were soaked in the damp, cold air making the wood of the roofs seem darker than they ought to be, the beams flush with moss as they dug into the earth below, the green crawling away into patches of wildflowers dipped in mud from new rain. Goats hopped around in the mud, jumping from surface to ground to surface again.

One goat in particular liked Clint quite a bit, dutifully following after him everywhere they went. When Loki pointed out a group in the distance who appeared to be loading large packages of meat into a truck, the goat whined after him as he turned to look. When Fandral noticed the time, he’d shown them to their individual cabins, small studios on stilts from what Loki could see, Clint’s new friend stood by the front door, waiting.

Loki was pleased to see their cabins were in a cluster so they could be together in this new and strange place. Sif had already gone in for a shower, and when Clint disappeared inside his cabin to explore it, Natasha chose instead to linger as Loki was shown to his own.

“Fandral,” she called. “What’s Thor up to? I wanted to say hello.”

Loki switched his attention to them, still curious about who Thor really was. Was he tall? Did he have bad teeth? Was he really a goat and this was all a scam, like Sif had warned him about?

Fandral clicked his tongue and looked out into the distance, somewhere towards the far side of the compound they hadn’t been shown yet. “I’m afraid he’ll be rather busy tonight. But tomorrow, first thing!” He leaned forward and gave Natasha a quick kiss on the cheek. “I promise, Nadine!”

“Natasha,” she bit out, tone still friendly. Loki could see the strain around her eyes as she said it.

Fandral sauntered off and Loki nudged her with an elbow. “Why does he keep calling you that?”

She aimed a flat glare at him and sighed. “Old nickname of sorts, I guess you could say. Nothing important, just annoying.”

Loki nodded again, remembering Sif’s words from days earlier. A deep prickling settled under his skin, but he pushed it down, deciding not to worry about it. His stomach growled.

“Is there a place to grab some food before we settle in for the night?” he asked, trying not to look too much like he was starving.

Natasha hummed, happy to move on.

\--

Natasha stepped into the low light of the dining hall, her head tilted back in appreciation of the high ceilings.

“Huh. They upgraded since I’ve been here. Could use some different paint though.” She looked back at Loki and waved him forward. “Come on, we’ll sneak some from the kitchens. They won’t mind.”

With a smile, she walked ahead, leaving Loki to trail after her. The hall was quiet for the late hour, but there were still a few people tucked away at one table near the far edge. They were smoking something that Loki only just caught the scent of, and it wasn’t pot. Their plates were close to clean, turned away and chatting happily amongst themselves.

Loki ignored the way one of them turned to watch the newcomer, Natasha already too far ahead to notice or duck behind. She was already inside by the time he was noticed. One track mind, that woman, he thought.

The kitchens were high-grade, multiple fridges and state of the art ranges. Loki marveled at how pristine everything was, gliding his knuckles over the stainless-steel edges. Wondered how much the endless rows of racks and gear produced each day to feed a small village.

Natasha had disappeared inside one fridge, rummaging for whatever she deemed worthy of a midnight dinner. Loki peered around the walls to one side and turned the corner, wanting to see what was hidden in the darker depths of the kitchens.

He’d worked at a small restaurant once, in high school. It lasted five days before he got into an argument with the dish-boy and it resulted in a broken nose that wasn’t Loki’s.

He supposed it looked much like any other industrial grade kitchen. But he’d never really considered how a small, hand-made community could either afford or manage to gain and maintain such equipment. The farther back he went the greater the smell of rising dough started to fill the air and he inhaled long and deep, mouth watering with the promise of fresh bread in the morning. Absently, Lok wondered if they churned their own butter and snorted at himself.

“It’s nice, right?” came a deep voice and Loki held his breath, turning slowly to see who had caught him.

“You’re the one from the hall?” Loki commented, recognizing the long blond hair. The diner who’d been so intent on him when they’d first walked in.

The man shrugged, broad shoulders bunched. Loki had trouble seeing him clearly in the poor light. “Sorry, usually it’s safe to smoke at this hour. Everyone tucks in about ten or so.” He raked a hand through his hair, sweeping it over his shoulder. It fell back in the same spot. “I have some more if you don’t mind sharing?”

“I don’t mind,” Loki muttered. He didn’t even know what it was they were smoking. He had to remind himself he hated smoking in the first place. “Maybe another time.”

The man smiled and Loki took in how tall and broad above the waist he was. He scratched at his blond beard and Loki took a step forward almost unconsciously.

“There a light somewhere?” Loki asked him, squinting against the dark.

The man laughed, deep but quiet. He was keeping his voice down for a reason Loki thought irrelevant. It’s not like they were doing anything wrong.

But then the man stepped forward, then did it again, until he was right in Loki’s space. His _space_ , the space he’d punched other’s bloody for invading. But this one was different, there was something off about him. Something odd and half shaped, and Loki couldn’t figure out what it was.

Loki realized the man was _very_ close just then and he could smell him, a brewy, munk sort of smell—like crops and mud and rain all at once. Something else underneath it all.

Loki realized all at once the man’s breath smelled like semen and it had his thoughts reeling.

Had he just sucked some guy off? Maybe one of the others at the table he’d been sitting with? Did he expect Loki to do something with him? Could he tell Loki thought he was attractive? Was he imagining it all because he was tired and hungry and a little pissed off that he’d lost sight of Natasha, his one landline in this foreign place?

Loki inhaled to make a point, and the man smiled. Straight white teeth and beard that reflected the low light in nearly-green fluorescence. It was instant. It was the sticky-sweet sap that pulled his insides together in a shiver, his legs numb. It was staring and staring and _hey are you alright?_ staring and dry lips that had to be wet twice by a quick tongue before he realized that yes, he was staring. Had been for a while.

It was stronger than the first time he’d pushed that boy he used to know against the gym lockers in ninth grade, when a first kiss felt like the best thing in the world. Made the back of his neck go hot quicker than when he thought about the way it felt to have teeth dislodge around his fist, chipping his knuckles in little bloody stripes.

His name was a target at the back of his throat and he knew it’d hurt before he even took the hit. Before the easy letters fell out of his mouth, landing quiet somewhere between the two of them. It felt like relinquishing a secret to some beastly creature.

“Loki,” he said.

The man smiled sharp and Loki couldn’t swallow or breathe. That honeycomb gold-laced trap at the back of his throat lay thick, raising the hairs along his entire body when the man’s blue eyes settled soft on his own.

The bones of his arms felt hollow and suddenly it was difficult to meet those eyes at all.

“You seem like you know your way around,” Loki said, voice wavering.

“A bit.” And he _smirked_.

Loki dipped his chin slightly, wanting to run and stay all at once. Where was Natasha?

“You looking to steal our bread,” the man whispered, his breath fanning Loki’s mouth, “Loki?”

Loki blinked and met his eyes. “I could ask the same of you.”

The man chuckled, the sound like a grater to his ears.

“We do what we must to survive,” the man told him, plainly aware of the effect he was causing.

He must, he must, Loki thought, or why would he just keep curling those sinful lips of his?

 _And what the hell does that mean?_ Loki wanted to shout.

“I have to go,” Loki snapped at him, voice breaking at the very end. The man hummed in amusement before stepping back and releasing Loki from the corner he’d backed him into.

Loki nearly ran back to his cabin. If he passed Natasha on the way, he didn’t notice.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to the playlist here: https://8tracks.com/mrhiddles/deep-black-wild-thorki-cult-au
> 
> Art by the lovely kamthe here!: http://kamthe.tumblr.com/post/179444141366/im-participating-in-thorki-big-bang-this-year-and
> 
> Check out my fandom Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mrhiddles

In the morning, Loki groaned awake, pulled on the same pants and shirt from the day before and walked the short distance out the front door of his little cabin. The morning air was chilly, but he went out for a reason and that reason was some idiot with a booming voice.

That same idiot Loki realized, through rapid blinking, was the tall blond from the night before. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing a stray curl behind an ear.

The man was talking about produce yields to Fandral who looked barely awake himself. Fandral scratched at his bare stomach and yawned, muttering about the greenhouses. Sif stood in the doorway of the cabin facing his and watched the two men much like Loki was.

When she spotted Loki, she reached just inside the door and hugged a mug of coffee to her stomach before padding over to him. He stepped down into the grass, feeling the mud shift under his toes.

“You look like you had a fun night,” he commented dryly when he took in how wild her hair was.

Sif shrugged. “It was decent. He gave me a sheep.”

“What?”

Sif blinked, and Loki thought he could see the hint of a shy smile. Shy was rarely used to described anything about Sif, and he marveled at the expression.

“One of his carvings. He said eating pussy always makes him want to carve wood.”

“Is that what they call it here?” Loki asked, huffing.

Sif pulled his hair, the yelp he made drawing the others’ attention their way.

The blond had barely turned his head before he was bellowing, “Natasha!”

Natasha was smiling through her glare. “You get louder every time I see you, Thor.” She shut the door to her own cabin and looked about as put together as a person could be. Like she’d been up for hours. Loki wondered what she’d done after last night, if she’d went looking for him after he left. If she even noticed.

“That’s Thor?” came Clint’s voice from behind them. He was dressed and fiddling with a half-empty water bottle. He toyed the cap off and took a long gulp before wiping his mouth. “Huh.”

Loki looked again. The man who’d had spunk on his breath was Thor. The man who cornered him back against racks of rising dough was Thor. The tall blond with arms that looked like they could crush metal was Thor. The Thor that three hundred people followed and who Natasha was shaking her head at like he was annoying the hell out of her.

Loki felt his mouth go dry.

Thor scoffed at Natasha’s extended hand when she got within reach and hugged her instead. She laughed into his chest, looked like a little girl in his arms; giddy and carefree. They exchanged what Loki assumed were greetings in Norwegian and then Thor’s attention was back on the group. He gave Loki a look that settled thick in his gut, made him sick with the force of it. An anxious tingle drew up his spine as Thor made his way around, shaking hands.

When he got to Loki he clasped his forearm and drew him in tight for an embrace, like he was some long-lost brother he’d not seen in years. He swallowed when he felt a strong hand grip the back of his neck. He shivered when he felt Thor laugh cheerily when Loki went tense in his arms. Thor’s hair smelled like the damp earth around them. Thor’s breath puffed hot against his cheek—peppermint toothpaste, no dark underbelly scent from the night before. Then all at once he was gone and moving on to Sif. Sif, who was smiling a hello but looking at Loki with wide eyes.

Thor threw Loki one last smile before moving back around to Fandral and Natasha, talking more quietly with them.

“What the hell was that?” Sif asked, sliding in close beside him. Her breath fanned his ear; spearmint, buried under coffee.

“Don’t know,” he said, because he really didn’t. His neck was on fire.

A snort stuck in the back of her throat. “He’s into you. Major league right there.” Loki hissed _no_ at her and she crossed her arms. “Please, he was all over you. You don’t do that to someone you _just_ met.”

“I technically met him last night—”

“Scandal!”

“In the kitchens,” he finished, glaring at her. “He caught me snooping in the bread.”

“Is that a euphemism for sex? Because I need to know if it’s safe to eat carbs while I’m here. You know how I’m fond of a good baguette.”

Loki rolled his eyes as she laughed beside him. “I don’t know why he said hello like that. I didn’t even know it was _him_ last night. If anything, he was—” Loki wanted to say _high, filthy, creepy_ , _intimidating_ , _terrifying, enticing, sexy, fucking demonic_ —

But instead all he said was, “Quiet.”

Sif hummed. “Maybe he’s marked you as his next dinner victim. He’ll go Hannibal on you when no-one’s looking,” she mused, tone light. “You _were_ too quick to claim they weren’t cannibals here. I bet he’s had a human liver or two over the years.”

Loki watched Thor. Watched how the man had Natasha lit up like a holiday storefront. She was a completely different person talking to him. She’d dropped that careful allure she’d held since she walked into their lives. Instead, she was smacking his arm and gesturing largely with her hands towards the more modern looking buildings, the pristine rows of  the shiny A-frame cabins lined up on the far hill. And Thor laughed and pointed through crossed arms all the while.

But Thor wasn’t touching her, past the hug he’d first given her. There was no arm-gripping, no neck-squeezing. He kept a good foot of distance between them, though he craned his neck down to hear her speak more clearly, intent on everything she said. He wasn’t touching Fandral either.

Fandral was staring at Loki.

“I won’t let him eat me, Sif,” Loki insisted, tired. He turned his back to Fandral, unnerved for a reason he couldn’t name.

“God, I would. Look at him,” Sif said. Loki frowned, not wanting to play into her jokes. The malevolence was still in the air around the man and for all he seemed kind and charismatic, Loki still felt a little ill. “He’s massive. I bet his dick is hu—”

“You know I can hear everything you’re saying, right? Guys?” Clint said. His boots crunched soft in the gravel underfoot and Loki groaned, switching his stare to the ground. Watched Clint’s shadow crawl across the small rocks.

“Good. You can weigh in on this,” Sif said, dragging Clint forward with a hand twisted in his shirt. “Does that man not look like he _breathes_ orgasms?”

“Okay. Enough. That’s enough,” Loki snapped at them both, stuffing his hands in his jean pockets and walking away. He could hear his friends laughing behind him.

He hadn’t put shoes on, thinking he’d just yell at whoever was being loud to shut the hell up so he could go back to sleep. But then that someone was _Thor_. _The_ Thor, and how could he yell at Thor? The leader of the group that just put him up in his own cabin for a month or longer?

“Hey!”

Loki muttered an _oh no_ before risking a glance over his shoulder. Thor was jogging to catch up, falling into step beside him. Loki walked faster and wondered how long Thor would bother trying to talk to him.

He only stopped when he felt his phone buzz. He grabbed it out of his pocket and saw Sif’s name flash up. Her text read: _You want me with you?_

Thor was smiling at him, easy and goofy and the complete opposite of the night before. Loki looked back at his friends. He could tell even from a distance Sif was obviously concerned despite her teasing. He shook his head and saw her nod in return.

“I swear I wasn’t stealing bread,” he blurted, directing his eyes back to Thor as he pocketed his phone again. His neck burned, and he wanted to take a shower, an ice bath, something. They had to have baths around the camp somewhere.

Thor waved a hand. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I know you wouldn’t steal.”

“You don’t know me at all,” Loki told him, bristling.

Thor’s smile edged along something quieter, more wicked. “I will.”

“You this friendly with everyone?”

Thor’s steady gaze broke, flitting about somewhere over Loki’s shoulder before he shrugged. “No.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged again. “I knew you weren’t going to steal my bread. Or dough, rather. I can tell you’re not a thief.”

Loki snorted. It wasn’t an answer.

“When do we get to try that bread, by the way?’

Thor frowned. “We had to make a new batch, unfortunately. There was an issue with the one you saw.”

Loki shrugged. He started walking ahead again, and Thor walked with him. “You were speaking Norwegian earlier?”

“Danish, actually.” Thor told him happily. “You all came at the perfect time of the season. The real storms haven’t arrived just yet.”

“Fandral said he was Norwegian,” Loki added, not wanting to drop the subject.

Thor didn’t seem bothered. “He is. I am. Many of us speak multiple languages.”

“You don’t sound like you’re one or the other though. You almost sound British.”

They were at the lip of a forested path now, the gravel spreading out to drier grass and worn dirt, not unlike the one they’d arrived on. The farther Loki stared into the depths, the darker it seemed. Some nameless weight lurking at the edge, flittering between the branches.

“That’s a long story,” Thor said.

Thor stopped him short with a hand on his shoulder. Loki stumbled one step and settled again, realizing only when Thor cast a look at his feet that they hurt a little, that he was in no shape to go hiking barefoot through the woods just to get away from everyone, Thor especially.

“Do you hunt?”

“Hunt what?” Loki asked.

“Food.” Thor narrowed his eyes at him when he jerked his head no. “You’ll need shoes for hunting.”

“Are we going hunting?” he asked, voice scratchy. His stomach turned, insides keyed up with nerves.

“If you want?” Thor asked softly, blue eyes dark in the wet light.

He seemed to sense how uneasy it made Loki feel. Loki thought of the chicken and the nonchalant way its slit artery spurted into the metal basin. He thought of the way Natasha had told him cows were worse. How did they do it again?

Loki shifted his weight and held Thor’s stare with his own, fingers suddenly restless in his pockets. He pulled them out and rubbed them together, blew hot air into his clasped palms.

“They kill cattle with captive bolt guns, don’t they?” Loki asked him.

It caught Thor off guard. He nodded and pursed his lips.

“It’s not what kills them, but yeah.”

Loki hummed.

“Is that red pickup out front yours or Fandral’s?”

Thor didn’t blink. “Mine.”

Loki thought of all the reasons Thor might need a rifle at arm’s reach. It had looked too big, too heavy to be for any sort of typical hunting.

“Let me get my shoes,” Loki told him.

Thor held his hand out again, stopping him. “Mine’s closer. I bet I’ve got thicker boots too. Come on.”

\--

Thor’s cabin was just as small as Loki’s, clean and minimal furniture. He’d expected something large and regal, something with too many bedrooms and no less than three bathrooms, maybe two kitchens and a DJ booth. Some beanbags. A bong. Maybe a slew of spilled acid tablets where Thor would lick one up and proceed to tell Loki the secrets of the universe, because that’s just what he did.

Instead, Thor had exactly one pot and two pans sitting stacked at his kitchenette and they were all cast iron. Two wooden spoons and a spatula in a green ceramic pot. Across from them were two rusted red stools tucked out of the way. His bed was economic rather than luxurious, plain black sheets and rumpled pillows, half made. No television. Books stacked on a coffee table that looked like a repurposed tree stump. The stairs leading up to the front door looked rickety at best, duct tape on one banister.

Loki leaned against the edge of the small loveseat that dominated most of the space, orange and draped in colorful blankets. There were two sets of antlers on the wall above the door and he stared at them. The one on the left somehow still had the soft velvet preserved around the smallest tines.

“My mother left me those,” Thor said from across the room. He was holding a pair of leather boots and watching Loki. He tossed the boots over and said, “These should fit, let me know. But first…”

He walked over to the sink and drew out a rag and bucket from the bottom cabinet. Filled it with steaming water and pointed for Loki to sit on the couch. Loki glanced at the black sheets of his bed and sat on the edge. Softer than his.

His pulse raced.

“Sorry about the dirt on your floor.”

“It’ll sweep fine,” Thor told him with a smile. He knelt, wet rag at the ready and Loki started to stand. Thor put a firm hand on one knee, effectively stopping him from moving anywhere. “Relax.”

So he did. Because he was sitting on his bed and Thor had him boxed in, _again_ , and Loki was just nervous. He was nervous because he hadn’t been in this position in a long time. This exact position—Thor on his knees with a wet rag and a few inches of hot water—never.

Thor carefully grabbed Loki’s right ankle and he twitched. “What are you doing?”

Thor eyed him. “I’m not letting you put my shoes on without clean feet and socks. You’ll get blisters.”

“You’re washing my feet.” Loki fought down a sharp inhale when he felt Thor more firmly hold his leg close, the rag dragging soft over his skin. He fought to stop the jumping of his knee.

Another quick press of the rag, dip, squeeze, repeat. “Obviously.”

Loki never thought something so mundane could be so intimate. He very deliberately controlled his breathing.

“Where are you from?”

Thor shrugged. “I grew up all over the world.” When Loki didn’t respond he added, “But spent my childhood in London before moving to Kentucky. Then I came back here when I was in my twenties.”

“How old are you now?”

He switched ankles and Loki felt less ready to bolt. “How old are you, Loki?”

“I’m twenty in a couple months.”

Thor laughed at that, a round sound that filled the room. He couldn’t help but smile at it.

“You’re a kid,” Thor told him as he rinsed the rag again. “Why’d you come here?”

“You really love dodging my questions,” Loki said. “I thought this place would be better than—”

Thor sniffed and set the rag in the bucket, Loki’s foot back on the carpet. He looked up at Loki, openly curious. Loki saw for the first time the small wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, the blend of white hair in the blond at his temples. His mouth tilted and for a wild moment he almost looked sad.

Ridiculous, he thought.

“Than what, Loki?”

Thor shifted and Loki was abruptly very aware of how close Thor was to him. He was knelt between his legs and Loki had leaned back on his palms. He let out too hard of a breath, watched the way Thor’s nostrils flared. He thought the space would give him room to breathe but it was backfiring.

“Than everything back there,” he whispered, thinking of his parents, school. His brother. His life. “Everything.”

Thor kept staring up at him. Loki stayed as still as he could manage.

A wide palm settled flat on the back of his calf and it burned through his jeans. He felt it to his bones. Thor squeezed his leg once before dropping his hand entirely.

“Nat was right to bring you here,” was all he said.

Loki sat up straight and looked into his lap, his hands there. Looked at the way Thor’s own hands played with each other between his spread knees.

“You really think so?” he asked. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt so small just then.

Thor pressed his knuckles into the carpet and then he was leaning up, much too close. His hands found their way to Loki’s jaw, his face, one thumb stroking a solid line over his cheek.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “I think so.” The shocking blue of his eyes had Loki quiet, words missing in lieu of his racing thoughts. Then Thor’s lips quirked up and his mind went peacefully blank. “God, you’re really just a kid, aren’t you?”

Loki swallowed hard and Thor traced the bob of his throat with his eyes. His gaze settled somewhere just south of his shirt collar and Loki wanted to touch him, feel his heart beat, his breath on his skin, something. Anything.

But then he thought of Sif and shut his eyes.

Thor tapped his thumb once before finally standing up, his knees popping.

\--

“Shoes proving decent for you?” Thor asked him as they walked along the same path they’d come from.

Loki nodded and said, “They’re fine. Why do you have a gun in your truck?”

Thor turned his head away, out to the trees.

“It looked like it was for something worse than hunting,” Loki added. It wasn’t anger that simmered inside him, slicking his gut, it wasn’t fear—he knew what that felt like too well. He was expectant, anxious for the answer.

Thor licked his lips. “Sometimes there are.” Kicked the dirt beneath his feet.

“Like what?”

Thor stopped and faced him, brows drawn together. “Sometimes worse things than animals come our way. Problems, like anywhere else. What you saw was the .450 Marlin my father used to hunt bears. It’s still pretty new, only about ten years old. Before that he did it the old fashioned way, before we left for London I mean. At least then we didn’t have to go back and see it when he took hunting trips.”

“What’s the old fashioned way?”

“Trap and stab. The rifle made it easier when he got sick.”

“Are there bears up here?” Loki asked, choosing not to push for more information.

He tried to imagine Thor’s father, who he could have been. A bear killer. A northman. The father of a leader.

“Some. My great grandfather was responsible for much of their _culling_ ,” Thor spit the word. “It became a family tradition. I hated it growing up. My father, he’d come home with a carcass in the bed of his truck and only come inside once he’d skinned the thing. He had it down to a science. Four hours to bleed, skin, and gut it. Then he’d come in, hands bloody, laugh when he saw my face and go wash up for dinner.” He scoffed. “You can’t eat a bear. Deer, cattle, fowl, rodents, but bears you leave be. You respect them. Their blood isn’t ours.”

Thor dug his hands into the pockets of his thick jacket and sniffed, not looking at him. Loki was struck by the thought of Thor, just a child, staring up at his father’s hands covered in bear blood.

He needed to know more.

“What about wolves?”

“To the east.” He wrinkled his nose. “You have nothing to fear around here. Animals know to stay away from cities, and we cause enough commotion we don’t have our things snatched in the night. Though Fandral does have to fight off a brave racoon now and again.”

Loki couldn’t help but smile at that and didn’t look away when Thor stared at his mouth.

“You guys sure have a thing with animals. They had us kill a chicken back upstate,” Loki told him after a held breath.

“Hunting for your own meal is different. You need to hunt with purpose. Tyr came up with the rest when he realized he’s excellent in tracking. He got bored I think and needed to find new ways to entertain himself with what he hunted.” Thor made a face. “I’ve never been one for needless presentation.”

Loki was about to ask who Tyr was when he felt a raindrop hit his forehead.

Then he felt another, and another and then it was raining. Out of the sky launched a sheet of water that cascaded towards them. Loki was frozen, startled by the sight rushing right for them. He’d only ever seen it in movies. Thor laughed as it caught up to them, soaking them through.

Thor launched forward and grabbed Loki’s sleeve, hauling him towards the trees for cover. They’d barely made it past the edge of the forest, and it made little difference against the torrent.

Thor was shouting. “Guess you didn’t need the boots after all!”

Loki turned and peered over at him, realizing too late how close they were, _again_. Always much, much too close. He inhaled sharp, unable to look anywhere but at Thor’s own face, the way his steady blue gaze trailed over him, the blond wisps of hair stuck to his skin. His beard was dripping and before Loki realized what he was thinking, he had reached up and swept his fingers over Thor’s chin, his cheek, his beard soft against his knuckles.

Thor’s eyes fell, all cheer gone from the curve of his mouth. Rain clumped at his eyelashes and Loki wanted to wipe those away too. Water was running thick down his scalp, over his nose, into his mouth with every breath. He felt like he was drowning, and the way Thor was looking at him just then, like he wanted to eat him alive, wasn’t helping.

Thor’s hand came up to his neck, a mirror from earlier. He leaned close and Loki felt his hair being swept away from his skin, hot breath replacing it.

“You want to kiss me,” he whispered into Loki’s ear, and somehow despite the rain he could hear him perfectly. “You want to touch me.”

Loki licked his lips. He ran his hands up Thor’s chest and wound them into the long hair at the nape of his neck. Tugged, hard, and felt more than heard the way Thor groaned from it. The man was grinning ear to ear.

“What gave you that idea?” he murmured back.

Thor just laughed and laughed. Then he stepped away.

“Easy now,” he murmured darkly. “Gonna have to take a rain check on that hunting trip.”

\--

“I want you to come to dinner with me tonight,” Thor told him when the rain had slowed to a drizzle.

Loki guessed it had only been about ten minutes. He could sympathize with Natasha on the rain.

“You’re asking me out?”

Thor snorted a laugh at that. “No. In my cabin. I want to introduce you to the others.”

“You want me to sit with your little club,” Loki amended, remembering the smoke, and the smell of Thor’s breath the night before.

“Tyr and Heimdall. Natasha will be there too.”

Loki wondered when exactly he’d set that up.

His phone buzzed and he saw it was Sif, asking where he was.

Loki shrugged and opened up his contacts. He shoved his phone into Thor’s hands and he took it, looking entirely too amused as he put his number in.

“Sure. Let me know when,” Loki said as he shot off a quick text to him. He waited until he heard the chime from Thor’s pocket. Waited until Thor’s smile turned devious before walking ahead to find Sif when they crossed back into view of the camp.

Thor watched him go.

\--

“Whose shoes are those?” Sif asked him as soon as she opened her door to his knocking. Loki sighed and stepped inside.

“Thor’s.”

Sif’s eyebrows shot up and she shook her head. “So, how is he?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Bullshit.”

“Sif,” Loki glared her way, sitting at the edge of her bed. “Stop.”

She huffed and leaned against the wall. “Natasha was right to hate the weather here. Fandral wanted to show me the gardens but then it started raining.”

“I like it.” Loki thought of Thor’s hands on him, the heat that still clung to his skin despite being half drowned from the torrent. “Still getting a creepy vibe from everyone?”

“Of course I am. You were taken away into the woods for two hours, what else was I supposed to feel? Calm and content?”

“It wasn’t weird,” he told her, not realizing how long he’d been gone. Not telling her how he had his hands in Thor’s hair. “He wanted to take me hunting, but I had no shoes. So he leant me some. Then the rain happened and then—”

Sif jabbed a finger towards him. “Excuse me, _hunting_? You? You got sick from a dead chicken.”

He slumped back onto her sheets, already tired of the conversation. “He said it’s different.”

Sif walked to him and then his vision was filled with the dark curtain of her hair as she bent over him. She braced herself on her palms and peered down at him, her usual look of disbelief reserved solely for him firmly in place.

“You’re going with him next time?”

Loki didn’t close his eyes. “Yes.”

“Hunting is no different. You’ll probably react worse. Did you think of that?”

He hadn’t. “Yes. I’ll be ready. It’ll be different.”

Sif groaned and collapsed next to him, her hair in his eyes. He laid there with his eyes closed, listening to her breathing.

“Remember when you told me, years ago…you said there was nothing inside of me?”

“Was I drunk at the time?”

“Sif.”

“Okay, okay. I remember.”

“I just feel different here.”

Sif inhaled shakily. “Different how?”

Loki inched his fingers along the sheets until he found her hand. She wove her fingers through his and just like that he felt like he was twelve years old again, in the girl’s bathroom, staring at Sif with wide eyes as she held a pair of scissors.

“I love you, you know?”

“I know you do.”

“Please tell me,” she pleaded in a small voice.

“I wasn’t sure about coming here until this morning. When I walked outside and saw him again. Thor. There’s something about him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I couldn’t tell last night, in the kitchens. Only that there was something off. But after today, it’s just different. I can’t tell you specifics. It’s just a feeling I have.”

Sif turned and buried her face in his neck, their clasped hands held tight between them.

“I’m only staying if you are,” she said.

“I know. I’ll try to put a name to it tonight, he invited me to dinner—yeah, I know—But listen, Sif. He’s new. I’ve never met anyone like him.”

“You’re beating around the bush.”

Loki squeezed her hand in his. “He has something I need.”

\--

“How’s Fandral?” Loki asked her sometime later.

“Haven’t seen him since it rained. Said he had things to do, but I saw him just wandering around. He’s avoiding me.”

Loki frowned. “I’m surprised he hasn’t declared his undying love for you yet.”

Sif shrugged where they laid side by side. “I don’t care.”

Loki could tell by her tone that she very much did.

\--

Loki opened his eyes to the faint vibration of his jeans pocket. He blinked blearily, sniffing past the itch of Sif’s thick hair clinging to his face and reached for his phone. They’d accidentally napped away most of the afternoon.

_Hope you like pork_

Loki blinked at the text. At the eight emojis immediately after _pork_.

_I’m told u cook good food. I expect to be impressed._

Sif sighed deeply in her sleep as he waited for Thor’s reply.

_Wrong. I cook fucking excellent food._

Loki snorted and started to type when another text came in.

_Natasha tells me to remind you not to try my eggs_ , accompanied by a shrug emoji.

Two more vibrations and Loki narrowed his eyes.

_Hope you like whiskey._

_1 hour, my place._

He’d be lying if he didn’t admit to himself that reading those words made his heart race. Just the tiniest bit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to the playlist here: https://8tracks.com/mrhiddles/deep-black-wild-thorki-cult-au
> 
> Art by the lovely kamthe here!: http://kamthe.tumblr.com/post/179444141366/im-participating-in-thorki-big-bang-this-year-and
> 
> Check out my fandom Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mrhiddles
> 
> Chapter warnings for: possibly disturbing language/reference to past abuse (not graphic), mild drug use (also not graphic)

“You’re late.”

“I’m not, actually,” Loki told the large man outside Thor’s door.

The sun was looming low in the sky, casting long shadows over the grass outside the cabin. The mud was newly thick, and it coated the better part of Loki’s shoes, but it didn’t bother him like it did when they’d first arrived.

The man gave him a once-over, eyes so light they were almost gold in the low sunlight. His dark skin was covered in tattoos of what Loki knew were runes, he just had no idea what they meant.

The man flicked the end of the cigarette he held and took a drag off it, the edge burning bright for a breath. Smoke curled delicately out of his lips until he inhaled through his nose to breathe it right back in.

“I’m Heimdall. Head of security.” Heimdall had a way of staring that made Loki feel like he was made of glass. “And I don’t like you.”

He reached a fist up and knocked on the door. A moment passed where Loki felt like crawling out of his skin before the door opened and Thor was there, looking amicably down at them.

Heimdall stubbed out his cigarette and walked inside, shrugging past Thor and taking a seat next to Natasha on the couch. Another man, stocky and with a buzzed head and mean mouth perched on one of the red stools he’d seen earlier. And to Loki’s bemusement—

“You _do_ have a beanbag!”

Thor pulled the door shut behind them and gestured for Loki to sit where he wanted. “You’re a fan?”

“No, they’re horrendous.” But he settled into it anyway, smiling to himself when he noticed Thor take the seat beside him on the floor.

“So, Loki, this is Heimdall, and there’s Tyr. I can tell Heimdall’s already made your acquaintance if his face is anything to go by, so Tyr—”

“’ead of acquisitions,” Tyr pushed out through a thick accent. He scratched at his left arm.

“And,” Thor prompted.

Tyr’s dark gaze slid over Thor and back to Loki. “And mercy.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mergers,” Tyr said, louder. “Can you not ‘ear right?”

Loki held up his hands. Natasha slapped Tyr on the knee.

“Leave him alone, the kid’s fine,” she insisted. “How are you liking everything, Loki?”

“It’s new. Haven’t really gotten a feel for most things yet.”

“You will,” Heimdall muttered into a beer. He settled those startling eyes on Thor and Thor just waved his hand. “He’ll want you at the meetings.”

“That ‘e will,” Tyr affirmed, scratching at his scalp. He smiled a close-lipped smile. “Fire and all.”

Loki felt uncomfortable, fought down the questions he had at that. It was Tyr, staring at him the way he was.

He itched to hold something to occupy his restless fingers. Natasha seemed more relaxed than she’d ever been, knees up and bare feet digging into the cushion, almost touching Heimdall’s leg. He didn’t seem to mind.

“What meetings—”

“You don’t need to know about those yet, Loki,” Thor told him, tone ending the conversation.

“But I will?” he asked.

Thor leaned forward, elbows on his knees, linking his fingers together. He hung his head and swung a dark look Loki’s way that stole his breath.

“You’ll have to answer my question first.”

Loki narrowed his eyes. “What question?”

Natasha snorted from the loveseat.

“What was the worst day of your life?” Thor asked him, voice low and even. “And how did you survive it?”

Loki’s mouth went dry, his throat felt sore. “Technically,” he managed, “that’s two questions.”

“I’ll need to know the answer before you see anything else,” Thor told him simply, shrugging.

The room was silent. Heimdall sipped at a whiskey. Loki counted two minutes before Thor finally sighed and stood up, his knees cracking. He went to check the food, sticking a wooden spoon into one of his cast iron pans. Loki smelled burning animal fat and his mouth watered.

He felt like he’d disappointed Thor. Let him down in some profound way. No one else was looking at him except for Natasha, her mouth was tilted in something close to sad.

“I’ll tell you. But not them.”

Natasha smiled, secret, her chin turned down towards her own beer.

“Leave,” Thor commanded quietly without turning around.

Tyr was the first to rise, slapping Heimdall on the shoulder for a cigarette. Heimdall handed him his pack before slanting out the doorway. Natasha gave Loki an encouraging nod before disappearing after them.

Loki waited for something to happen. Something new, or different, but Thor stayed where he was. He stirred diligently, wide shoulders relaxed where blond hair fell like water over them.

Loki stood up, took two steps. He stopped again when Thor set his spoon down.

“It was night. Not day.”

“The worst night of your life then.”

“It’s hard,” he forced himself to say. Because no matter how hard he thought to puzzle the words together before they left his mouth, they stopped short every time.

“It was hard for the others too,” Thor said.

Loki sucked in a breath, too loud in the small room. Thor turned around but hung his head low, staring down at the floor.

“I haven’t even told Sif.”

“Is it something she needs to know?”

“Maybe.”

“A secret, then,” Thor muttered.

“You collect secrets? Is that it?” Loki bit out, anger flooding through him. He choked it down, his jaw aching, knew this moment was meant to be something _more_. Meant to sway the course of his life, one way or another, if he just tried.

Thor didn’t answer him.

“Look at me,” Loki said.

He did. “Secrets are dangerous. They poison you.”

Loki shook his head. “You have secrets though, right?”

“Oh, plenty,” he breathed.

“And do they poison you?”

Thor looked right through him. “Every moment.”

“And who collects your secrets?”

Thor’s lips quirked up. “They’re not anyone’s burden but my own.”

“And how are my secrets your burden? How are any of these people’s yours?”

“Because I love my people. It’s my right to share their burden. My duty to them.”

Loki balled his fists at his sides, felt the air trap in his throat. Thor didn’t move.

“And to me?”

“Absolutely,” Thor told him, firm, immediate, and beyond sure. “The moment you set foot here you became my responsibility.”

“And you love me?” Loki asked, and really, that was the question he needed answered.

Thor breathed out long and low. “Answer the question, Loki.”

It was insane. Loki knew that. He’d known Thor for less than forty-eight hours, and already his palms were slick with sweat, his heart racing, his tongue a rope in his mouth. When he looked at Thor it was like looking at a reflection of every sorrow he’d ever had, and how do you explain that to anyone? To yourself?

“I was sixteen.”

Thor stared and stared and stared—steady and unmoving.

“I was sixteen,” Loki started again. “It was my first fight. And the first time I’d washed someone else’s blood off my hands. This kid from my history class. Big and stupid and everything I hated. He looked like my brother, Helblindi.”

“You hated your brother?”

“Yes. For a long time. I haven’t seen him in years.” Loki breathed in. “I wanted to kill this kid. I almost did. Sif dragged me off him.” Breathed out. “It was the first time I felt like I was in control. I only realized later one of the teeth I knocked loose had cut my knuckle on a punch.”

“That doesn’t sound like you consider it your worst night.”

“It wasn’t. Not that part. It’s context. For how I—How I was.”

“Alright.”

“Helblindi was still awake when I came home that night, practically morning by the time we were done. Sif had dropped me off. We’d had a whole bottle of Jack Daniel’s. She’d told me I was empty inside, nothing was in me, I have nothing _here_ ,” he said, twisting his fingers into his shirt, over his heart, “That I don’t love like anyone else does.”

His eyes were filling with tears too quickly. The stoic lines of Thor were blurring at the edges, wobbling with every withheld blink. He’d never told this story.

“But she’s my best friend, so what does that even say? About me? About my life? About everyone I’ve ever been with? So, so I come home that night. It’s maybe five in the morning? The moon is at one end of the sky and the sun’s at the other. It’s this weird middle ground and I open the door and shut it behind me, probably too loud. I always thought I’d been quiet, but maybe it was too loud. I try sneaking up the stairs, trying not to wake my mom. Or worse, _him_. He would’ve been in my brother’s room, I knew that, I _knew_. But I still made too much noise.”

A tear breaks the threshold and slides hot down his cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away. Just keeps looking at Thor, tethered where he stands because it’s Thor there, looking at him. Holding him down with resolute silence and crossed arms.

“I went into the bathroom and turned the faucet on. Washed the blood from the stupid boy from my history class off into the sink. I remembered it looked like paint swirling down the drain, the kind they give out in those ridiculous freshman art classes. I thought it didn’t smell bad. Movies and books always say it smells bad. I didn’t lock the door behind me. The bathroom had always been _mine_. I took baths all the time, I always locked the door. It was _my place_ ,” he hissed. “When I looked up, I saw my brother in the mirror behind me.”

Thor made some sort of sound, but Loki was crying now, letting his vision go wet. He knew he was still looking at Thor, Thor who was standing there saying nothing, but he couldn’t make him out. Loki finally swiped at his eyes with his hands and bit his tongue once, trying to calm down. To get angry.

“He was my brother,” he said again. Felt a familiar wash of space inside him, sweeping over the memory, the pain of it.

A beat and then Thor was there, in front of him, strong hands on his shaking shoulders. He felt so small before Thor just then he tried to duck out of his sight. But Thor gripped his jaw with firm fingers and angled his face up. Loki blinked and saw Thor’s eyes were shining and endless.

“And how did you survive?” Thor asked him. The words turned inside around and around on themselves until he could barely think to do anything except answer them.

But even so.

“Sif doesn’t know any of this.”

Thor caressed his thumb over Loki’s cheek, wiping away more tears. It was gentle and everything and Loki wanted to fall away into the motion. Back, forth, back again, gone.

“She never has to.”

“Two weeks later, I went into his room after our father left.”

“And?”

“I tried to cave his head in, used a lamp, or a figurine of his—I can’t even remember. Washed my hands. Left. I found out later it didn’t work, what I did. I didn’t kill him,” Loki whispered. “Moved in with Sif after being on the street for a few months. She thought I was trying to get used to having a roommate before we left for college. She didn’t question it. She knew how I felt about my family anyway.”

“What about your parents?”

“They didn’t come looking for me. Didn’t file a report. Nothing.”

Thor shifted and held his face tighter, impossibly so. Loki felt if he squeezed his skull anymore, he might pop. Thor was so close, moving his hands over him, so firm on his shoulder, his arm, his wrist, and he was shifting and moving so much with so little effort, Loki could only sob before him. He couldn’t hide anything. It felt good not to.

“There’s rage in you,” Thor breathed.

“Not anymore. Not like that,” Loki tried. There wasn’t.

Thor fell forward, his forehead too hot against Loki’s. “There is. You’ve pushed it down. You need to let it out.”

“I did,” Loki said, pleading.

“Don’t lie to me,” Thor told him, and it sounded like a threat and a comfort at the same time.

Loki reached up and placed his hands over Thor’s own. Thor went still, and Loki thought he might try and kiss him.

“I don’t ask for help.”

Thor squeezed his eyes shut and Loki saw tears fall over Thor’s red cheeks and vanish into his beard. “You don’t have to. Not with me.”

“What if I don’t want your help?” Loki asked him, suddenly feeling calmer.

Thor opened his eyes and his hands moved back up to Loki’s neck. “You came here, didn’t you?”

He had him there. Loki had been searching for something. He still didn’t know exactly what it was he was looking for. But he had found Thor. And Thor had found him.

Thor had the answers he needed. He knew it.

Loki needed to know why he was like this.

“I did.”

Thor cleared his throat. He was a quiet crier, almost pretty in the way he went about it. He sniffed loud and jerked Loki’s head back against his own for a too quick flash of a moment—a cheek skimmed across forehead, the barest brush of eyelashes on Loki’s lips—before he pulled away, as if trying to take Loki’s pain with him.

“Come on. There’s food to eat,” Thor told him.

\--

Tyr was the first to level Loki with a leery stare when the others came back in, making the hair on the back of his neck rise the longer he kept at it. Heimdall ignored him entirely in favor of chatting Natasha up while Thor plated the food.  
   
Loki was handed a shallow bowl of pork cutlets and potatoes and was privately shocked when Natasha made a sound of excitement.

“I knew this smelled familiar!” she cooed into her plate.

“No egg, like I promised,” Thor told her, digging in with his own fork.

“You outdid yourself, _zamechatel'nyy chelovek_!”

Loki went still, chewing carefully. Natasha didn’t seem to notice her slip up, and Loki’s thoughts were spinning. He wondered if Sif had been right all along.

Then he saw how large Natasha’s pupils were.

“Natasha, are you high?”

She giggled and that was all the answer he needed. Natasha never giggled.

“Liberty cap,” she eventually sighed, pulling a bag out of her back pocket.

“They’re boring,” Heimdall said from his seat, even as he watched her pop one in her mouth.

“Here,” she said, tossing Loki one.

A small white mushroom bounced off his arm and rolled between his legs. He picked it up and rolled it around in his fingers. Tiny and fragile and soft, didn’t smell like anything special.  
   
“Thor?” Loki asked, wary of it.

Thor smiled at him. He reached across to Natasha and grabbed one for himself, ate it like it was nothing.

“You were asking me what I was smoking the other night?” He pointed at his mouth and grinned around his chewing.

Loki nodded and looked back down at it. He knew if things were to get out of hand, Thor was there to stop it. He had Thor.

Thor, who was looking at him with that goofy smile. He thought of the rain.

Loki placed the mushroom on his tongue gently, rolled it around, and bit.

\--

Loki felt fuzzy at the edges.

“This is where I say night, all,” Tyr announced, standing. He was shaking his head as he headed out the door, displeasure clear through the haze. “Thanks for the meal, Thor. But my stomach’s feeling a bit off. See you tomorrow, noon sharp.”

“Mmhm,” Thor hummed from his seat beside Loki. He was leaned back easily on one elbow, knee up and feet bare. When had he kicked off his shoes? He spared Tyr a long look as he left.

Natasha had her feet tucked beneath Heimdall’s thigh. “You’re always such a good big brother, watching out for us all. Such a hard-ass.”

“No more tonight,” Heimdall told her, snatching the bag from her grasp. He slipped it into a pocket and frowned.

“Hard-assssssss,” she drawled, smiling.

A finger wiggled its way into view as Thor tapped Loki’s leg. Then he laid a palm flat on his thigh.

“How are you doing?” he asked, eyes hooded. His hand felt like it would sink through his skin, his bone, straight back down to the floor and through the earth it was so heavy and warm.

Loki nodded, neck lolling, feeling too heavy. “Warm.”

Thor blinked and his eyes were suddenly very blue, then very green, then white and Loki thought he was seeing things.

“There it is,” Thor sighed pleasantly, at what, Loki didn’t know. He felt like he was swimming and sitting still all at once. Everything was too bright all of a sudden.

The modest lamp Thor had tucked away in the corner was on fire. It was on fire, why didn’t anyone else see it? And he was itchy, like ants were marching in neat winding rows beneath the skin of his arms. He refused the urge to give in to the need to scratch.

“I don’t feel so great,” he managed to say before zeroing in on the way Thor was firmly squeezing his thigh.

“Just breathe through it. You’ll see.”

It was just Thor, then. Thor and Loki. Loki and Thor and Natasha and Heimdall, who were very far away, in another cabin, in another forest, on another planet—they were just _gone_. But Loki was here, with Thor.

Thor, who looked like there were two of him, swaying in and out like he was some long lost Dalí painting. Shimmering bright and slightly growing glowing tendrils at the corners.

“You’re worth millions,” Loki informed him, lips tugging up sluggishly.

Thor smirked at him. “Now where did you hear that?”

“Gala told me.”

“Who?”

“She’s dead.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not dead.”

“I’m not,” Thor confirmed.

“I need air,” Loki breathed. He shot to standing and rushed outside, collapsing against around the side of the cabin, heaving in fresh night air. He doubled over and blinked at the mud.

He gulped in and in and in and tried to force his thoughts to stop, just _stop_. He was high, he knew that. It was the shroom. Why was he panicking? Why was he trying not to cry? Why did he feel like his vision was closing in?

Thor’s feet came into view and he shook his head, not wanting to explain. Not sure he even could.

“No more for you,” Thor said, somewhere above him. Loki could almost feel the hovering weight of Thor’s hand before it retreated back to his side.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“Then throw up. The mud won’t mind.”

“Who even _are_ you?” Loki groaned.

He finally straightened up, hand across his chest. Thor looked amused. Always that ever perfect _amusement_ spelled out on his perfect mouth.

“I’m Thor. Son of Odin. Leader of Bilskirnir.”

“I mean _that_ , what is that? Bilskirnir?”

Thor didn’t answer him.

Loki’s eyes filled with tears and he huffed. “This mushroom shit is awful. I think this is a cult.”

Thor’s expression didn’t change. “I hear people call it that sometimes, when they don’t know how it works.” Then, “Would it be so bad if it was?”

Loki breathed out slowly. It felt like a punch to the stomach.

“Sif told me it was a cult. Before we left, she warned me. I should have listened. You had a massive fucking rifle in your truck for fuck’s sake—”

“Used for hunting—”

“You do drugs, you _give out_ drugs. You lure people in with acceptance and love and then you bully people into giving up their secrets. Their most precious secrets. These dark and evil confessions—”

“I didn’t bully you—”

“And you get off on them, don’t you?” He rasped out, desperate. “You watch the people who come here squirm and then you strip them of everything. You leave them with nothing, not even their own thoughts.”

Thor rolled his neck and held his hands up in surrender. “Loki. You need to stop.” Loki glared at him when he took a step, then another. He was too close. “You’re paranoid. You’re having a bad trip. That’s not what usually happens, but like I said, you’re not having another cap if you don’t want to. And I’m sure as hell not letting you smoke it.”

“I don’t want to,” Loki mumbled, angry, tearful, tired. He sounded like a child but didn’t care.

“Good. And I never bullied you. I don’t _lure_ people here with false promises. I care deeply for everyone here, no matter how long they stay. I care for you.”

Loki rubbed the heels of his palms over his eyes, groaning. “I can’t believe that.”

“Why not?” Thor asked him quietly.

“Because everyone always leaves.”

Thor sighed and stepped closer, crowding Loki in against the cabin. At the last moment he stepped to the side and they stood shoulder to shoulder. Loki let out a held breath, not sure what he expected to happen.

“You want to know one of my secrets?” Thor asked him, looking at the ground beneath them.

“Sure.”

“My little brother died. His name was Balder. My father said he fell in the ice one winter, but I knew it was a lie. Balder was six, but he knew how to walk on snow and ice because I was the one who taught him. We did it all the time growing up. When Odin got sick, I wasn’t there in the end, and I don’t regret that.”

“Why did he kill him?” Loki asked, because Thor was speaking like he’d said the story a thousand times, calm and collected. Formal. Accustomed. And he thought Thor deserved at least one person’s acknowledgement of the darker truth lying buried in his story.

He shrugged and leaned harder into Loki’s side. “I don’t know. It’s a feeling you have, when you know something’s not right. The air around a person shifts when they’ve done something like that. At least with him it did. He used to call Balder weak. Put me on a pedestal like I was his prized pony, something he wanted his other steers to aspire to. I had a sister, a lot older. She left because of it when we were still small. His favoritism shifted from her to me.”

Thor sneered and spit on the ground. Loki reached over and, in a moment of pure impulse, grabbed his hand.

“He was a bastard. He deserved to die suffering like he did.”

“What was he sick with?” Loki asked.

“Cancer.”

Loki nodded and Thor turned, grabbing up Loki’s hand and holding it between both of his, tucked safely against his sternum.

“We’re not bad people here, Loki. But I won’t lie to you. I expect things from the ones who stay. But I don’t expect you to stay. I won’t ask you to.”

“What kinds of things?”

“I can’t tell you right now.”

“Like before, with the secrets?”

Thor nodded. “Kind of. Everyone here has suffered in some way, small or large. We make our own way, our own future. In return, the people here keep this place up and running. Everyone here made their own choice to stay. You need to make that choice for yourself. You need to see how this place is run.”

“I met Freyja and her brother.”

Thor peered at him. “You understand then, why their love cannot thrive in typical society?”

Loki bit his lip and swallowed down the memory of how lonely it felt watching how comfortable they’d been together.

“Does it make it right though?” Loki asked him.

“Who’s to say what makes something right if those involved are happy and not harming those around them?” Thor countered, bringing Loki’s hand up to his chin to breath hot air over.

Loki shivered. “There’s part of me that says _run_ , and another that says _stay_. I don’t know what to do.”

“This place didn’t form on purpose, it was by accident. It was Heimdall and I, and then Tyr came in, and then Fandral. From there it grew and grew and after a few years, Natasha thought to expand in the states. This is a place for people who don’t feel like they can survive in everyday society. Those with depression and social anxiety, some have PTSD. Sick people looking for a community they’ll be allowed to live out their last days in on their own terms. Those seeking to live out full lives unafraid of the repercussions of society like Freyja and Frey. People who’ve suffered terrible losses. Families looking to raise their kids more traditionally in nature. People who just want to get away for a summer. People like me, who have found a family in his friends. People like you, who are looking for answers.”

“How do you know I’m looking for answers?”

“I can see it in the way you look at things. You’re an observer,” Thor told him simply.

Loki looked at him, disbelief clear in his tone, “Oh, you’re good.”

“I don’t try to be.”

“You won’t eat me?”

Thor made a face and laughed, bright and sudden and Loki smiled at it.

“What?”

“Sif thinks you’re cannibals.”

Thor shrugged. “I’m afraid I have to dispel that idea.”

“Too bad.”

“And you’re still a little shiny at the edges.”

The grin was back and Loki swayed towards him, drawn to the sight of it. The sight of Thor’s face. Thor alone. He’d never felt so undone by a person’s presence before.

Thor’s grin softened the longer the moment dragged. He placed a quick kiss to Loki’s knuckles.

\--

Loki woke up to Sif elbowing him in the kidney.

“What the hell,” he mumbled weakly, feeling bone-tired.

He bent his neck and squinted at Sif where she glared over his shoulder.

“I had to put you to bed last night,” she told him, frowning. “You were higher than a goddamned kite.”

“At least I made it to a familiar bed. It’s not like you’ve never got high and couch-hopped, if you’d rather call it that.”

Sif made an indignant sound. “Yeah, because I’m me and I know my limits. I also only go home with the men who know I know I could physically obliterate them in a fight. And the women I go home with don’t usually require that observation.”

“That’s sexist.”

“I said, _usually_. Remember Amora in eleventh grade?”

Loki grimaced. “Reasons I designated her to a part time friend. Quickly.” Sif poked him in the armpit.

“And besides, you hate cigarettes,” she added. “I hardly believe you would take something other than ibuprofen willingly.”

Loki pulled his pillow from underneath him and swatted her with it. “It was one mushroom, taken _willingly_. And it made me sick, if it makes you happy. I spent most of the high just talking to Thor and, uh. Hm.”

“ _Uh, hm_ what?”

“Then I threw up twice in front of him and he walked me back here.”

Sif’s frown faltered and wobbled and then she was laughing.

“You know he wanted to tuck you in. But I took you off his hands for the night. He looked disappointed.”

“You’re joking,” Loki breathed, unbelieving.

“Like a puppy who had his food dish taken away. But I will say he brought you here, and not to your own cabin so he could have his way with you. Guess that says something.”

“Because he’s not a creep like you think he is?”

Sif shrugged and threw the pillow back at him. “Natasha woke me up around three, banging on Clint’s door. She was laughing like a lunatic.” Sif huffed. “So, I suppose you had a marginally less embarrassing experience.”

Loki pushed a knee in between them, trying to push her away. “It was fine. Thor’s fine. But I feel like shit.”

Sif rolled out of bed and stood smoothly, tugging her hair back. Loki couldn’t tell if she believed him about Thor or not.

“Serves you right,” she told him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to the playlist here: https://8tracks.com/mrhiddles/deep-black-wild-thorki-cult-au
> 
> Art by the lovely kamthe here!: http://kamthe.tumblr.com/post/179444141366/im-participating-in-thorki-big-bang-this-year-and
> 
> Check out my fandom Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mrhiddles

The next week was spent learning the ins and outs of how the compound was run, how it kept its people fed, and marveling at how much could fit in so little space.

Loki, Sif, and Clint were given a tour by Freyja, Natasha tagging along most days until she didn’t. Usually that meant she was off with Thor, Tyr and Heimdall; doing what, Loki didn’t really know.

The farming involved meant just under forty hectares tucked neatly against the edge of the forest, where crops of wheat grew in the open air and the rest were cultivated in hand-built greenhouses, delicate and worn down from years of harsh weather. Freyja detailed the livestock they kept grazing on just shy of two hundred hectares, but the space didn’t seem to match the image in Loki’s head of the place. It was bitingly cold as they walked a good portion of fencing, patting curious cows and sheep in places where the mud wasn’t too thick. In the distance, Loki could see faded barns leaning in the wind.

They were shown looms where women and men were weaving, their hands busy and raw from the task. In another shed with rows of fridges they saw masses of homemade cheese, rows upon rows of unlabeled jams, a pickling section, and blocks of cream. The walls were lined with racks of drying jerky.

“What’s that?” Clint asked halfway through, pointing at a large warehouse with no windows. It looked out of place, almost crouched back in the woods to the edge of community.

Freyja kept smiling. Kept walking. Soon enough, Clint was distracted with something else.

Bilskirnir also had a shopping mall. Filled endlessly with clothes and items both bought and handmade, ordered simply by size and color. Freyja let Loki take a fur lined black pea-coat and he knew he’d have to be dragged out of it before he even sank into it. Sif and Clint both found gloves and—to Sif’s delight—a raucous oversized red scarf she didn’t take off for a week.

“The clothes are free?” Clint asked, pulling on the knitted gloves he found.

“Of course,” Freyja insisted, looking confused. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

“And the food?”

Freyja just laughed, like Clint was funny. “We have a sign in sheet and a record is kept of all that is taken daily. Then we restock. Is that so odd?”

“You had a hospital a ways off. That free too?”

“Oh, you will see our health center soon! We of course have doctors here who help regulate what medications are taken and when, and they um…Well, you didn’t hear this from me, but we are quite well off when we need to find a specific medication for someone.”

“Free food, free clothes, free shelter and health care. Jesus Christ,” Clint had muttered under his breath after turning back to his friends.

Sif had stepped outside at that, eyes tellingly misty. Loki very nobly decided not to mention it to her later.

The school they had was run by the professionals in the community. There were thirty-four children in the compound, Freyja told them, and two pregnancies due towards the end of the year. The kids were split into two age groups, primary and secondary. Secondary math was the one they were shown, awkwardly stepping to the side of the lesson, trying not to intrude.

When one girl spotted Freyja in the room, she beamed and waved, her braces-framed teeth almost too large for her head.

“That’s Skadi, she’s a lovely girl. I tutor her sometimes in history,” Freyja whispered to them with smiling eyes.

Loki saw content people. He saw whole people. He saw people living instead of just surviving. He hadn’t realized he was zoning out from the realization until Clint touched an arm to his shoulder.

\--

“It’s really…happy, isn’t it?” Clint said around a mouthful of freshly baked bread.

“I see no downsides. It’s a wonder there aren’t more people here,” Loki added.

“Why aren’t there, then?” Sif asked them, serious.

Loki and Clint glanced at each other and then back down at their lunch, silent.

\--

That night, it was Sif who noticed a flashing light coming from Thor’s side of the compound. It was late, and so far they’d heard nothing like it. Clint grabbed three beers from his cooler and they settled in front of his cabin. Natasha had been missing all day.

“Guess they have some fun around here after all,” Clint commented tiredly, yawning.

“Don’t know.”

“That’s Thor’s place, isn’t it?” Sif asked Loki, nudging him.

“Don’t know,” he repeated, uncomfortable.

If it _was_ Thor’s cabin…was he having another dinner? Why hadn’t he invited Loki?

Had he done something wrong? It had been almost eight days since he’d last seen Thor, so maybe Thor had written him off? Maybe he’d not proven himself after all? What was there left to prove? He’d already told Thor his worst secret.

 _Why do I care so much_ , Loki thought to himself, worrying his lip between his teeth.

Loki went to bed, choosing to forgo beers with his friends. Clint grabbed at him jokingly but Loki just waved him off.

He tried to think of the rain until he fell asleep.

\--

Loki had a dream that night.

He dreamt he was knee deep in a bog, the water rising, little white flowers floating past. He waded deeper and deeper, burning heat roaring through him from ankle to knee. Then higher still, towards his waist, pain clawing its way up his skin.

He lost his clothes somewhere along the way, when had that happened? He covered himself, feeling helpless, lost, alone. Terrified of the tall dark trees leaning over into the swamp, curling at the edges in evil twists.

Spice pricked his sinuses and he sneezed. He reached up and when he drew away his hand there was blood. Too much blood. Dripping down to mix with the water, murky green, too green, weeds pulling and scratching at his feet.

He sank further and further, cast a plea to the sky and saw Thor there on the bank in front of him. He was just standing there, watching Loki drown and how could he do that? Just watch while he died?

The water lapped at Loki’s chin and he shouted, begging.

Thor crouched as the water rose above his nose.

“Are you a hunter?” he asked.

The water reached higher, and he was pulled under. He sank, pulled down by angry weeds, through the mud, straight into the earth itself.

“Or are you prey?”

Loki woke with a shout. He was drenched in sweat.

He sat up for a long time, unnerved. He couldn’t get Thor’s eyes out of his head, too bright even in the darkest light. Thor’s words played over and over again, a steady loop through his thoughts as he tried to calm his racing heart. Nothing was working.

He paced around the small cabin, but it was too small. He needed out. He needed the air and the sky and the trees.

Loki slipped out to the porch. Stood there for hours, cooling off.

\--

The second week, Loki, Sif and Clint were invited to participate in various tasks around the compound. Loki suspected it was what Thor meant by _expecting things_ from his people; in this case work. He wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of working while he was there but if he had a month to figure it out, then he’d suffer through it.

Natasha was mysteriously back with them, going everywhere they went, rarely out of earshot. Clingy, Loki would have called it if he knew her as anyone other than herself. Natasha often had reasons no one was privy to aside from herself. And as far as she and Clint were concerned, it was Clint who seemed like the clingy one.

Sif was a little too good at the loom to be entirely comfortable with herself, so when Natasha suggested she stay there for the afternoon— _"See how you like it!”_ —she stared Natasha down and said she’d find something else she’s better at.

“Like hell I’m going to spend the next few weeks knitting,” she’d hissed to him after Natasha finally relented.

Loki was comfortable with the animals, but he wanted to see the rest of the jobs offered. And Clint, he suspected, was sabotaging every task they tried.

“Maybe she’s saving the best for last,” Clint had said, shrugging.

But Loki knew Natasha didn’t miss the smug smirk Clint wore every time he failed at a task with a dramatic, _“Whoops?”_ She led them to an offshoot of the kitchens. The door had a keypad above the handle. Natasha tapped quickly at it and shouldered the door open after a loud beep sounded off.

It was cold and there were locked black units lining the walls. There were lockers and a rack to hang clothes up by the door. Otherwise a very sterile, minimal room.

“Security,” Natasha announced, eyeing them.

“Gimme.” Clint grinned. He tried to kiss Natasha on the cheek but she swatted him away.

“You have academy in a few weeks. You sure you want to bother with this? It’s boring.”

“I could do with some boring before the real work starts.”

Natasha sighed an _okay_ and handed him a black vest with a single grey circle on the back.

“Me too,” Sif chimed in, raising her hand.

“Really?”

“Look at me.” Sif flexed dramatically.

Natasha laughed and tossed her a vest. “Try it out, Heimdall will show you the ropes in a bit. Should be here in ten minutes or so,” she told them, checking the time on her phone. “He’s a hard-ass so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Loki gave her a look, but she was decidedly ignoring him.

“Hard-ass bosses I work well with.”

“Suit yourself,” Natasha said. She waved Loki over. “Come on.”

Loki followed her out. It didn’t take long to feel slightly out of place as they stepped down a sloping path scattered with rocks.

“I’m seriously fine with anything, as long as it doesn’t involve Heimdall or Tyr.”

Natasha threw a raised brow at him. “Not their biggest fan, huh?”

“I’m afraid they’re not _my_ biggest fan. I just don’t know how long I’ll be here, is all. I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to stay. So I just don’t want something that maybe makes it harder to leave is all—”

“Who told you that you didn’t belong?”

“Uh,” Loki stumbled. “No one did.”

“Then why would you not be allowed to stay?”

Loki stopped short. She turned and met his bewildered look with a shake of her head. “What’s up?” she asked him, gentle.

He ran a hand through his hair, too long over his ears. “It’s just I feel like I did something—something wrong.”

“Why?”

“Thor hasn’t talked to me since we got here.”

Natasha made a face. “He’s a busy guy, Loki. I’m actually taking you to him now.”

Loki blinked. “But this isn’t the path to his cabin.”

Natasha pointed toward the forest. “He’s not in his cabin.”

“Oh.”

So he followed Natasha into the woods. It was a different path than the one Thor led him to. The trees were thicker, casting longer shadows. They shook with the mild wind and the ground felt icy with each step. Soon enough the natural path of the forest broke free and Loki could see a well walked trail of molded leaves and stamped dirt.

Natasha stopped abruptly, and Loki almost ran into her. She pulled something from her pocket and turned to him, her eyes hooded in that way that made his stomach turn.

“What is it?” Loki asked her, unsure.

Her mouth was set in a firm line, dour at the edges. She uncurled her fingers and his mouth went dry when he saw what she held.

It was a knife. She flicked it deftly, the blade flashing before she dropped it as his feet.

Loki took a wary step back as she crouched.

Natasha swayed at the knee, back and forth, as she held both hands up. She was poised to launch herself at him and Loki’s mind went blank.

“Cut me,” she told him.

“What the fuck is this, Natasha?” Loki asked her, eyeing the knife on the ground. He laughed more out of nerves than anything else.

Something too close to what he’d felt growing up like he did, slithered down his spine and he hated it. Wanted to run from it.

“Your job right now is to pick up that knife and use it to cut me. Draw blood. Then the fight will be over.”

“We’re not fighting. You’re Clint’s girlfriend,” he scoffed at her.

Natasha reached forward and smacked him on the cheek. He stood, stunned into stillness.

“I’m your friend. Then Clint is _my_ boyfriend. Pick up the knife.”

“Natasha.”

“Loki,” she said flatly.

“Nat—”

Another smack.

“Stop that,” he growled at her.

Natasha held her hands up and smiled. “Then do what I say.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he told her, incredulous.

“No, you’re not.”

And, really, it was the smirk she gave him that made him pick the knife up at all.

“This is stupid,” he told her.

“You’re a fighter, aren’t you? You do this shit all the time.”

“You say it so flippantly.”

“Isn’t it flippant though, to you?”

“I’m good at it,” he told her.

“Don’t be cocky. Prove it.”

“We don’t use knives. We don’t do weapons,” Loki tried, delaying.

“Now you do.”

Loki sighed and before he could think, Natasha charged him, throwing him to the ground. She rolled away and he shifted onto his side. The breath was knocked out of him. He heaved and coughed and forced himself back up.

“That was shitty.”

Natasha’s lips quirked up.

He gripped the handle more firmly, switching his grip to a slash rather than a stab. He felt shaky, his arm was wavering, the blade glinting meanly back at him. Natasha always had a way of making him nervous, but it was worse now when literally demanding a fight from him.

Loki braced himself for her next charge. But before she slammed into him, she ducked and kicked, sweeping his legs out from underneath him. She smacked him so hard on the side of his head he saw stars and he almost, _almost_ dropped the knife. He groaned and forced himself back to standing.

“That’s getting annoying.”

“It was annoying the first time. Now it’s pissing you off.”

She was right.

Loki threw his hand out, the blade cutting through the air as she snapped to the left and grabbed his arm in a death grip, her opposite hand glancing across his brow in another almost-slap. It dazed him, but he grit his teeth, swung the blade where she still stood. She threw him instead, spinning them both to the ground again. Leaves stuck to his cheek where he lay pressed in the dirt.

He jerked his hips and kicked out to get his footing again, using his body weight to force her hold on him to break off. Natasha rolled away and he followed after her, not caring anymore if he hurt her. She demanded it of him.

But every punch he threw, every arc the blade sliced through the air between them, he couldn’t touch her. She was too quick, too focused.

When he took a step back Natasha stayed where she was. She wasn’t out of breath, where he was heaving.

“Where did you learn this?”

Natasha ran and jumped at him instead, her legs flashing in front of him. Before he knew it, she’d flipped him completely around until he was on his back. Her elbow was digging into his shoulder and somewhere, he realized, the knife had been lost.

Loki met her stare and it was like looking into a void. Something too deep and feral in him knew that look and he hated it, despised it, had known exactly what it was staring back down at him.

Natasha seemed to realize the same and, swallowing, raised her other hand. Loki felt the cold line of the knife at his throat. She wasn’t looking at him.

“Game over,” she rasped, pressing the sharp edge into his skin.

Loki couldn’t breathe. She was going to kill him.

Then she rolled off him and lay still. Cradled the knife in a lazy grip against her stomach and stared up at splinters of sky through the thick trees towering around them.

“What the hell was that, Natasha?” Loki snapped, sitting up. He coughed and rubbed at his throat.

She just closed her eyes.

“I thought I could do this again,” she whispered.

Natasha drew herself to standing and without saying another word, walked away.

Loki didn’t move for a long time.

\--

Loki couldn’t sleep that night and so when he heard a steady knock at one in the morning, he simply got up and answered the door.

It was Thor.

Loki sighed and went back to collapse in his bed before Thor even shut the door. He stood in Loki’s little living room, taking in all the unchanged details since he’d haphazardly moved in. He’d kept it impeccable since coming to the compound. He didn’t know what Thor was looking for.

“Why did you come to Norway?” Thor asked, not looking at him.

“Not this again,” Loki breathed, rubbing his hands over his face. “Natasha tried to kill me today.”

“That wasn’t her aim.”

Loki turned onto his side, facing the wall rather than Thor, who stood unmoving.

“I was there, in the woods. I watched you fight.”

Loki stayed silent.

Thor sighed. “I think you could have done better.”

Loki threw the covers off and grabbed his jacket, tugged on his shoes. He trudged out of the cabin without a word, knowing in his gut Thor would follow him anyway. That he wouldn’t question him.

Thor did.

Loki walked fast to the woods. Tried to beat out the cold seeping down his exposed skin at the neck and wrists with hard, forced breathing. He wanted to be away from everything, the cabins, his friends.

But, he realized somewhat late, not Thor. Thor was the exception.

After fifteen minutes of walking Loki slowed until Thor was close enough behind him and then he turned and punched him. Felt the nose under his fist bend but not break and it felt good to do it.

Thor stumbled back wordlessly, hand coming up to hold his face.

Then he straightened, shrugged off his jacket into the dirt and held his arms out.

Loki hit him again. His knuckles came away wet. Thor’s lips were split, red staining his beard.

Again, Thor just stood there. He was waiting. He let the blood well and break over his full lips as his breathing picked up, puffing hot little clouds into the air between them.

Loki bit down hard and threw another punch. And another. Then four more and Thor’s blood was spread over half his face, part-way down the strong column of his neck.

Thor closed his eyes, silent. Didn’t try and hide the way his breathing was pained, sounding wrong on the exhale.

“I hit you anymore and your orbital breaks. Or your nose, if it isn’t broken already,” Loki told him, fighting not to run in the other direction. Fighting not to hit him again, like his arms were begging him to.

Thor stayed silent.

“Say something,” Loki barked.

Thor lowered his head, neck bent. Like a prayer.

Loki hated it.

“Say something you fucking idiot! What are you doing? Why are you letting me do this to you?” Why were his eyes wet?

“Because,” Thor finally answered, clear and unbothered by the blood certainly clogging his sinuses. “You belong here.”

A sound caught in his throat, half formed and awkward.

“You belong here,” Thor repeated. “With me.”

Loki punched him a last time, for good measure. Thor stumbled and fell back into the dirt. He clutched his nose.

“You fucking deserved that,” Loki told him, out of breath and exhausted more than he’d ever been.

Loki sat beside him, drawing his knees up. He ran a thumb over his eyes to stop the tears. He hated crying.

Thor groaned as he pulled himself up. He turned away and spit blood, cleared his throat. He shuffled closer to Loki, thigh warm where it pressed into his.

“You usually this nice when you fight?” He grinned, his teeth still white under all that blood.

Loki snorted then sniffed. “Oh, I’m much nicer. I just don’t like you right now.”

He laughed at that and hissed with the effort.

“On second thought, maybe you did more damage that I thought.”

Thor breathed quick, once in then out, as he set his own nose with a loud _clack_. Loki turned to look at him then, at the clear relief as Thor let out a slow breath. He held his shirt up to his nose to try and stop the newly freed blood.

“I used to like having nosebleeds as a kid,” Thor said.

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah. I was a weird kid, I guess,” he agreed. “You’re pissed because I haven’t spoken to you in two weeks.”

Loki only nodded, not wanting to confess the details for how pathetic they sounded.

“You needed to see more of this place, without me there to influence how you judged what you saw.”

“I think it’s a miracle this place doesn’t have _more_ people. So. Hm.”

“So?”

“So,” Loki muttered. “There must be something wrong. Somewhere I can’t see.”

“I like to keep this place as quiet as possible. We’ve had trouble before.”

“Like your _worse problems_?”

Thor cast a tired look his way. “Yeah, that. People don’t like the idea of these communities. We’ve had arson in the past. One year, when we were still small, not even really established yet, some police from a local city came in and shot our livestock under the pretense of code inspections.”

Loki shook his head. “Pathetic.”

“Tyr took care of it. He got them to leave us alone.” Thor shrugged. “The worst was about three years back. There was a kidnapping. A family came in and took one of ours in the night, their son. He was legally an adult. It ended in two deaths.” He sighed shakily. “It was bad.”

“What happened?”

“The boy they took had just turned twenty. There was some sort of struggle as they’d driven away with him. We found them in a ditch the next afternoon. The father lived. The police came in and it was an ongoing issue for a long time. They’d thought we’d had something to do with it because when they’d left a few of ours had driven out after them.”

“Jesus. You said three years? Natasha left back then, didn’t she?”

“She did. Hers is a shifty nature. Restless. She needs change when she needs it. Moreso than the others.”

Loki thought back to what she’d said before she’d left him in the woods, alone. He had no idea what she’d meant. He still didn’t.

“Why did you come here, Thor? Why start all this?”

Thor smiled, soft and private. “Isn’t that the million-dollar question?”

“Pretend like I have the money then.”

Thor leaned into him. “Life is bigger here. Smaller too, when I need it to be.”

Loki understood that. Understood it perfectly.

“Were Natasha and the one who died close?” he asked, softer.

Thor thumbed at his eyebrow. “Yeah. He went by Barnes. American like you, actually. His parents were both military, so moved around a lot. You know how it is. I think he was wanting to stay here before they moved on.”

“Tough luck.”

“Why do you do that?” Thor asked him.

“What?”

“You’re stoic a lot of the time. But it’s an act.”

“You’re my psychologist now?”

Thor laughed. “No, just noticed you like to pretend things don’t bother you as much as they really do.”

Loki couldn’t argue that. It wasn’t exactly untrue.

“You were disturbed when you fought Natasha. When you saw you made me bleed. It’s a pattern with you. You only break when you’re pushed.”

“Because Natasha is my friend. I think.” He ignored the rest of what Thor said, knowing he was right. Not wanting him to be.

Thor was watching him, but Loki didn’t appease him by acknowledging the attention.

“Am I your friend?” Thor asked him, sincere.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

Loki turned and met Thor’s gaze. Loki knew what was going to happen before it did. Thor drew him in close with a hand on his neck, a familiar weight, a very badly missed weight, hot on his freezing skin. He drew Loki in and his breath was all heat and promise and _worse things_ , before those full lips pressed easily to Loki’s own.

Loki kissed back because he wanted to. Didn’t feel like he had to, so he did. Kissed him through the copper-smack taste of blood. Swallowed down the taste because he wanted some part of Thor within him always, digested, absorbed, assimilated. Anything to keep a part of the addictive absurdity of him.

“We’re not friends,” Loki informed him as he pulled away.

Thor let him go with a smile.

\--

“I like it when you say fuck, by the way,” Thor murmured into his neck when they were back at Loki’s door.

Loki let himself smile.

“Fuck,” he breathed into the cold night air. Thor laughed quietly. “Cock. Pussy.”

Thor pressed the line of his nose to the curve of his shoulder and Loki swayed with the movement. His fingers climbed to tangle in Thor’s shirt.

Loki turned and whispered hotly into Thor’s ear, “Cunt.”

Thor dug his hands into Loki’s hip, inhaled deep and bit at the skin beneath his hood. It hurt for a quick moment and Loki couldn’t hide the gasp that leapt out of him. A mark, hidden away.

The cold rushed back in and suddenly Thor was a foot away. His eyes looked hollow in the darkness, the smirk he wore too full of promises for Loki to pretend like he didn’t know what he was thinking just then. What it was Thor wanted to do that night.

But it was late, too late. And Loki knew it wasn’t the right time.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Maybe,” Thor said.

Loki turned and slunk inside his door before he could second guess the decision.

He slept better.

\--

In the morning, Loki saw dried flakes of blood dashed across his shoulder where Thor had buried his face. He washed his hair in the sink and pulled a new shirt on, not wanting to watch the color go just yet.

\--

Clint came inside when Loki was eating breakfast the next day; scrambled eggs and toast from a homemade loaf of sourdough Freyja had handed him a few days earlier.

He was restless, picking small things up before replacing them. Loki waited, knowing his friend wouldn’t appreciate immediate questions.

Finally, Clint sighed, exasperated. “Have you seen Nat?”

Loki choked down his bite of food. Cleared his throat. “Have you not seen her?”

Clint’s chin jutted forward, not looking at him. He was clearly worried, something Clint didn’t often seem to be. Loki’s hands were shaking, so he hid them in his lap.

“I haven’t seen her since we walked through some of the woods yesterday,” Loki told him. Clint didn’t need to know what they’d been doing.

Clint ran a hand through his hair. “This is weird, man. She usually at least texts me, but I don’t think her phone is even on.”

“She seemed a little out of it a few days ago,” Loki said, not wanting to go into what happened in the woods. “Maybe Thor or Fandral would know where she is?”

Clint jerked his chin in acknowledgement he’d heard him. But he lingered, shifting his weight from foot to foot, eyes dodging around the hills through the window.

“What else is wrong?” Loki asked.

“Academy called this morning. I have to leave this weekend. It’s not like I can just go without her.”

Loki pulled out his phone and shot a quick text to Thor and Freyja, asking if they’d seen her. He set it on the table and waited.

“I highly doubt you won’t see her at some point today.”

Clint smiled wryly. “That’s the thing, man. I’ve been seeing her about as much as you have, which isn’t much. Maybe I fucked up a good thing. I don’t know.”

Loki glanced at his phone. Nothing.

“How could you have? It’s only been a few weeks,” Loki told him. It felt like months.

Clint perched on the edge of the table, pinching a piece of toast from Loki’s plate. He chewed and frowned. “I’m a lot older than you guys. When you’re my age, there’s just things you think about a little more. I have goals, you know. Life goals. Natasha’s twenty-four. I didn’t think she’d be _too_ freaked out, you know—”

“You didn’t.”

Clint shrugged and took another bite. “When you know, you know. What can I say, man?”

“How’d you ask?” Loki asked him, appetite gone.

“Maybe it was bad timing. She was high. Nothing too unusual. If anything I was a little insulted she didn’t bring back any for me. She just went to bed. When I woke up, she was gone.” Clint rushed out a breath. “I’m kind of freaking out.”

“Don’t freak out. She loves you. She doesn’t seem like the type to just ditch someone she loves,” Loki assured him, because he was almost certain she wasn’t. It was uncomfortable for him, and unusual, being the mediary for personal issues. Sif usually handled things like this.

His phone buzzed. It was Freyja.

_Sorry, I haven’t. :(_

“She does. But sometimes that’s not always enough.” He sighed. “Sorry, I’m not making much sense. I’m gonna go. Catch you tonight?”

“Of course,” Loki said, nodding. “I’ll go check in with Thor.”

Clint gave him a wondering look before squeezing his shoulder and standing to leave. Loki followed him out.

\--

The path to Thor’s place had become a familiar one, Loki realized. It took him less than ten minutes at a quick almost-jog to get from his bed to knocking on Thor’s door.

Nothing. He knocked again, louder.

The knob finally turned, and the door inched open, revealing an exhausted Natasha with deep bags under her eyes. She narrowed her eyes at him before letting him squeeze by.

One look around the small room told Loki Thor wasn’t there.

Natasha tucked her hair behind both ears and crossed her arms. “Clint’s an idiot.”

“Clint’s in love. I’m sorry you have to see him like this.”

That got her to smile and it felt like a victory.

“Did Clint send you to find me?”

“Something from the other day tells me if you don’t want to be found, you won’t be.”

She snorted at that and went to sit on the floor, her back to the couch. Loki took a seat beside her. He noticed someone had left a credit card out on the low coffee table for anyone to see but couldn’t make out the name. Something about the faded surface struck him as familiar, but then Natasha was speaking.

“Sorry about that by the way. Your neck alright?”

“More or less. My ego is more wounded than anything else,” he said. “Did you learn how to fight here?”

She shook her head and rubbed a finger under her left eye. “No. Somewhere else. Somewhere farther away.”

“Where?”

She smiled something rueful. Vicious. “That’s my secret.”

“There’s a lot of those around here.”

Natasha hummed. “I wanted to say yes. To him.” She breathed deep. “But not here,” she added in a whisper.

“Why not?”

Natasha didn’t answer immediately, instead seeming to worry her hands. He didn’t know if it was a show for him, or for her.

“I missed this place until I came back. I didn’t realize how hard it would be—” she cut herself off and waved a hand as if to dismiss it. “I want to go back to New York. It’s easier to breathe there.”

“I think you’re the only person in the world who’d say that and mean it,” Loki told her.

“You mean besides CEO’s and junkies?” Her smile morphed into something more genuine.

“Exactly. You, CEO’s, junkies, maybe some vloggers.” She laughed again, a soft, raspy sound. “I think you two are good together by the way.”

“He’s good. The core of him is good,” she said, then grew quiet again. “It’s harder for people like us, isn’t it?”

Loki risked a glance her way. She was staring at him.

He remembered that day in the woods. The way she’d looked right through him, right inside him, to that dark, blank place that only Sif had ever been able to pinpoint. But the way Natasha hadn’t needed to point it out, the fact he’d seen the same in her, was different. It was something sharper, more painful—knowing someone else like him was out there in the world.

“I was taught to be empty. I don’t remember how to be anything else,” she told him honestly.

“Better than being born empty.”

“I guess I do have that going for me,” she said easily. Loki elbowed her and she rasped a laugh.

“You’re different with him” he said. “You’re different here too. You seem happy.”

“There’s just a lot of memories here for me,” she said. “That’s hard too.”

“So go back to New York with Clint.”

“And do what?”

“Make a life together. Be happy with him. Have a baby.”

Natasha made a face.

“Okay, yeah, don’t do that last part. But just be with him. Be together. It doesn’t matter where you answer him.”

“He’ll find out I’m like this. About what I’ve done.”

Loki pressed his shoulder into hers. “He’s not the kind of person to run. I don’t know if you realize this, but he did just recently propose to you.”

Natasha bit her lip.

“You can learn to be not empty again, you know.”

“Very eloquent,” she said, then sighed. “I know he’s worried right now.”

“A little, I’d say.”

Natasha stood up and brushed her fingers through her hair. “Let’s go then.”

She hauled Loki up alongside her and they went to meet Clint together.

\--

Outside Clint’s cabin, Loki squinted in the sunlight. Norwegian weather was a fickle thing, he was coming to learn. Natasha stood beside him so she was hidden from the window’s line of sight.

Loki knocked and Clint called from inside, “You find her?”

“No luck!” Loki called back, biting his tongue.

“You know,” she started, even as they watched the curtain flip up to reveal a glaring Clint, “What you told me, the same goes for you. I don’t believe you were born empty.”

Before Clint opened the door, he could be heard mumbling, _You’re a damn asshole, Loki._

Loki could only stare at her, at a loss of what to say. He thought of Thor, how it felt to be held so tight by him.

“By the way, are you Russian?” he asked her instead.

She smirked but didn’t answer.

Then Clint was tugging the door open.

Natasha threw her arms around Clint’s neck and kissed him. He lifted her off her feet.

“So that’s a yes, then?”

“Ask me again in a few weeks. But probably.”

“Dick.”

“Dumbass.”

Clint grinned before he could stop himself. Then he cleared his throat and seemed to realize Loki was still standing there, watching them.

“Okay, uh, yeah, thanks man. You can go now, bye.” And shut the door in Loki’s face to the happy laughter of a rarely flustered Natasha.

All in all, it was a good morning.

\--

Two days later, Loki was hugging Natasha goodbye. That first night he met her, he never thought he’d end up here, genuinely sad to see her go, if not a little relieved.

Clint had his sunglasses on, thanks to the unusually sunny day. Sif was giving him shit for leaving before she did, making her look like a bad influence on Loki.

Clint gave Loki a hug but it was short-lived. He sniffed tellingly as he pulled away, his chin tucked down as he scratched at his nose.

“Thanks for the help, man. You’re not so bad at it. Being nice, sharing your _feelings_ ,” Clint said, teasing him. Loki just nudged his arm in reply.

Sif and Natasha talked for a while, off on their own. Natasha was holding her face at one point, both looked over to him at another. Sif looked ready to cry towards the end. He wondered what they were talking about, but knew better than to ask.

Fandral, Heimdall, Freyja and Frey were there too. Thor wasn’t. And neither was Tyr, which Loki was grateful for. There was food and drinks and soon enough, Fandral corralled them into his car to drive them to the airport in Oslo. Clint’s goat caterwauled after them.

“It’ll be more boring now,” Sif said as they watched the car shrink in the distance.

“We’ll go back soon,” Loki told her.

Sif gave him a knowing look. He pretended not to see it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to the playlist here: https://8tracks.com/mrhiddles/deep-black-wild-thorki-cult-au
> 
> Art by the lovely kamthe here!: http://kamthe.tumblr.com/post/179444141366/im-participating-in-thorki-big-bang-this-year-and
> 
> Check out my fandom Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mrhiddles
> 
> Chapter warnings: there's reference to a kink in here that's more of a joke than anything else. You'll know when you get to it, but rest assured that it's not going to be a kink in the story, if it’s not your thing.

_Nat needs to move on._

Loki stared and stared at Thor’s text for the better part of an hour, before a second one came in.

_She has a good friend in you. We’ll miss her here. And Clint._

Loki couldn’t explain the lump in his throat. The sick spiral of his lunch, unsettled in his stomach.

He decided to spend time with the cattle. He took a bin and some hay and a few apples and went along the fence, petting them and sneaking them snacks.

His pocket vibrated and he yanked his hand back too quick, a cow accidentally nipping him. He only realized his palm was bleeding from a small cut when he unlocked his screen.

_Come to me tonight._

Loki sniffed at Thor’s choice of words but texted back a lick emoji and left it at that.

\--

Loki stayed out in the field until it grew colder and darker. The cows had wandered off hours before and he’d been sitting in the half-dried mud from that afternoon’s short drizzling for most of the afternoon and early evening. He was freezing and every few minutes his teeth clattered but he stayed where he was, content with the view of the fields.

Then the music started. A deep thumping bass that filled the quiet when the clouds began to blend with the night sky. Then the lights. A cascade of shifting, pulsing colors that bled into the stars.

It gave Loki a headache.

He pulled up Thor’s texts and found the call icon.

“Don’t tell me you want me to follow the music?”

He could hear Thor laugh on the other end. “Follow the yellow brick road, then, love.”

Something warm spread through Loki at the word. He bit his lip. “Seriously though. You’re gonna keep everyone up.”

“It’s Saturday night. We have a standing tradition around here, every other weekend we have a little get together.”

“Like your cabin,” Loki said, standing. His knees cracked, and he winced, realizing his ass was muddy.

“Not at all.”

“Like what then?”

Thor made a chuffing sound and Loki wondered if he was eating something. “Come find out.”

\--

The closer he got to Thor’s cabin, the more he realized the commotion couldn’t possibly be coming from his home. The lights were off, the curtains drawn. And the music still went on all the while.

Then he got an idea. He pushed on, stuffing his hands in his pockets to keep warm. The temperature had been dropping earlier and earlier over the last few nights and Loki wondered if it would rain again.

Loki walked and walked and soon enough his sternum was reverberating with the bass of the loud music. He was close enough that when he turned the corner around the school, he was bathed in blue, then green, then purple flashing light.

It was the warehouse. Windowless and looking like it could fall from a sneeze, but standing and housing quite the rager from what he could hear.

Floodlights had been dragged out front, swiveling back and forth and alternating colors that shot into the night sky. Loki craned his neck back and wondered if they could be seen from Sundvollen, or even Oslo.

He was considering leaving and going to bed, or at least _trying_ , when he caught sight of Tyr coming towards him. He tensed up automatically, but willed himself to resist stuffing his fingers in his ears.

“You alright?” Tyr barked at him from two feet away. He stopped and lurched forward like he was about to fall over.

“Are you?” Loki asked him.

Tyr narrowed his eyes and raised his lip in a sneer worse than Loki could ever hope to muster.

“What brings you ‘ear, kid?” he snapped.

“Your boss,” Loki half-shouted at him but Tyr was already turning back, jerking a hand over his shoulder for Loki to follow him.

Tyr nearly tripped over the doorway and that’s when Loki realized he must be drunk.

Then it was all sound, liquor, and chaos. Too many people. People he didn’t know. Too much noise, pounding and thumping and moving, a sea of sweaty bodies. They collided with each other and he narrowly avoided being crushed twice before Tyr managed to push a path through to the back of the building.

Loki already hated it. Parties had never been his thing.

But then Tyr was opening another door, and inside was an immediate black wall. It reminded him of the stage behind concerts. Loki almost didn’t step inside. He reminded himself it was Thor who asked him here. Thor who he was going to meet. Thor, who Tyr was hopefully bringing him to and not some dismemberment ambush. Sif would be pissed if he was dismembered and she didn’t know about it.

Loki caught a whiff of pot from a girl who danced around him and he steeled himself, stepping through despite his (few) misgivings.

Tyr closed the door behind him, but Loki didn’t immediately register the decrease in the noise level because in the middle of the new, smaller room, was another crowd. Maybe fifteen people. Concentrated around two fighters. They danced over a concrete floor and only one of the fighters had gloves, but there was no mistaking a fight when he saw one.

Thor was watching him from the other side of the room, smiling to himself.

Tyr wandered off, scratching at his neck, so Loki hurried ahead. When he reached Thor, the crowd cheered loudly at a punch that knocked one of the men to the floor, before he hopped back up and whooped in excitement.

Thor still had light bruising around both eyes and Loki thought, with a jolt, _I did that to him_.

Thor bobbed his head happily. “Thought you’d like this.”

“This is what you do every other Saturday?”

“Only the main event,” Thor explained, nodding towards the door Loki had been led through. “This room, we utilize when we feel like it.”

“How is this not the main event?”

“Depends on who you ask.”

“You think it is,” Loki said. It wasn’t a question and Thor’s smile grew clever. He glanced down at Thor’s hands and noticed his knuckles were wrapped.

“You fight too?”

“Sometimes.”

Loki refused to let himself fidget. He got antsy when he wanted to fight, like an itch that crawled relentless up his spine. Cold and hungry and always wanting more, more, _more_. It had been too long.

“How’s your nose?” Loki asked him, leaning close and lowering his voice.

The people booed a bad throw.

“You can’t hurt me, Loki,” Thor told him. It sounded like an admonishment.

“You sound like Natasha.”

“You didn’t want to hurt her.”

“She was like a goddamn squirrel, spinning around all over the place. Usually the guys I fought weren’t trained. It was high school. I’m not trained.”

Thor didn’t answer him. Loki would never learn the ins and outs of why Natasha could fight so well, it seemed.

“Is there really a difference,” Thor murmured back to him.

Loki shrugged. “Of course there is. I’m not hung up on that _do no harm_ shit.”

“So, you want to hurt your opponent?”

Loki shrugged again, feeling like Thor was leading him somewhere he didn’t want to be. “Yeah. I was a kid, back then.”

Thor gave him a look that told him what he thought of that statement. Loki swallowed, remembering the first day he’d been invited into Thor’s cabin, his _home_ , and had his feet bathed by the man. He hadn’t deserved that. It made him feel odd and too close all at once. Like he’d crossed a line that hadn’t even been drawn.

“That was the point of the fights I fought,” he added. “To hurt the one you were fighting. It was a mutual agreement. Then we went our separate ways. I haven’t fought anyone in years.”

“Then fight me.”

Loki barked a laugh, loud and out of place. A few people turned to look at him and he recognized Frey among them. Loki offered him a weak wave before another landed punch drew his attention away again.

Loki leaned close, his breath hot in the small space between them. “I already _did_. If you don’t remember.”

“You tasted like wintergreen,” Thor replied. “Of course I remember.”

Loki felt his neck go hot. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you sent me a naughty emoji.”

“You’re too old to say that word, god.”

Thor cast him an amused look, eyes glinting. He pressed closer still, lips briefly brushing Loki’s ear. “Would you rather I ignore that and go straight to calling you _baby_?”

Loki shoved him away at that, skin burning. Thor laughed, deep-throated and low and Loki both hated and craved the sound.

He took a breath, calmed himself. “Only if I get to call you _daddy_.”

Thor’s eyes went wide, his laughter dying in his throat. He ran a thumb slow over his bottom lip, considering him. Loki refused to look away first.

Then a man called out the fight’s end and the crowd was moving around them. Thor held his gaze for as long as he could before people started clambering to bid their goodnights to him. He received more than one hug in thanks.

Three stayed behind, not including Tyr, himself and Thor. Thor told Tyr something Loki couldn’t quite hear, and then Tyr was nodding and heading off.

“Fight me,” Thor told him again after Tyr left. “The others are leaving.” And sure enough, when Tyr came back in the room, the music was actually at a reasonable level.

“Why?”

“Because I want to fight you.” Thor’s voice left no room for any contradiction Loki might have thought up, if he could have. He was exhausted, and tired of never knowing what Thor was really thinking.

“You’ll fight back this time?”

Thor rolled up his sleeves and pulled his hair back, tying it off quickly.

“What do you think?” he asked and Loki was done, watching how he sauntered off to stand where the fighters had.

Loki shrugged off his jacket and shirt, leaving him in his tank top. He didn’t have any wraps. He didn’t have any medical supplies if Thor started bleeding again. He didn’t have a tie, so his hair would be getting in his eyes.

He tugged off his tank top at the last moment. Didn’t miss the way Thor’s eyes were glued to the movement. Ignored the way Thor’s sight caught for a moment too long on the inches-long scar twisting around his left oblique, still raised thick in places that hurt with the cold.

Loki took his place across from Thor and breathed like he knew how, slow in through the nose, slow out through the mouth.

Tyr was the one to call start.

Loki waited for Thor to come to him. He didn’t know how the man fought. But he was much larger than Loki was and that was dangerous. Thor could have him thrown and pinned to the ground in a moment if Loki let him.

Natasha fought close to the ground, swept your knees out from under you, used her weight to throw you off balance. Loki wasn’t trained, but he knew how to brawl. And Thor looked like he knew how too.

Loki remembered then. “What are the rules?”

“Use what you know. Use what you see,” Thor answered easily, voice level. “It’s over when someone yields.”

“Or?”

Thor closed the distance instead of answering, throwing a hard punch straight for his face. Loki avoided it, knowing Thor was testing the waters same as he was.

Loki inched forward and threw his right fist out, aiming for his abdominals. Thor took the bait and swung to the left, shoving himself into Loki’s space. Loki hip-checked him and landed a hit to Thor’s cheek as he stumbled back.

His knuckles stung.

Thor let out a surprised grunt. He had to still be sore from when Loki first hit him, days before.

But Loki had been angry, and it had felt different.

Now, Loki felt like a catch was coming, he just didn’t know from where.

Loki went in for a second hit but Thor sidestepped his arm. Did it again, and then a third time. The fourth step, he twisted to the side and rammed his elbow into Loki’s face.

He saw stars before he could blink. Thor let him have a moment to reel himself back in. It was pain, thundering through his jaw and his ear, but he knew pain. Knew it well enough once that he missed it now. He wanted more of it.

“Yield or let go,” Thor said.

Loki brought his arms up to shield his face when Thor tried the same thing twice. Loki shoved him away and managed another punch to Thor, this time to his temple, glancing off wild in the air.

Thor didn’t seem phased. Loki didn’t know why Thor wasn’t just throwing his arms out and slamming Loki to the ground. He _could_ have.

Thor caught Loki’s next fist, so Loki kneed him instead. Thor pushed him off easily, grabbing Loki’s neck with one arm, choking him. He could breathe, but barely.

Loki pinched and clawed at him but the most he drew from the other man was small gasps of breath as he was dragged bodily backwards. Loki could see Tyr laughing from where he was leaning against the wall.

“Don’t…laugh…at me,” Loki forced out. He knew Tyr couldn’t possibly have heard him.

Thor didn’t relent. Didn’t even look up.

“Get out!” he barked, the sound ringing Loki’s ears.

Tyr sighed in annoyance but got up and did as he was told. The few that were left spectating obediently followed out after him without a word.

Then they were alone.

Loki sucked in as deep a breath as he could and bent as hard and as quickly as Thor’s weight on his back would let him. He didn’t so much as throw as drag Thor to the ground, hitting him twice in the sides before Thor wrapped his arms around Loki’s waist and flipped him around, face first to the floor.

Loki landed on his side, his head only just missing the cement, the breath knocked out of him. Thor pinned him with an elbow against his chest. He was stronger than Loki expected, strong enough that nothing he did to throw Thor’s weight with his own legs was working. He couldn’t catch his breath. Couldn’t reach him to kick him.

Thor was breathing just as hard. “Let go.”

“What are you talking about?”

Thor pressed him harder into the concrete floor. “You’re holding back. Let go.”

“I _am_ ,” Loki bit out.

“You’ll never move on if you don’t let out your anger.”

Loki went limp. “This is not the time for a therapy session.”

Thor didn’t let up. “Fighting’s the best therapy there is for some people.”

Loki went back to clawing at Thor’s arms, trying to squeeze his fingers under his unrelenting limb for some leverage, if any. Nothing was working.

“I stopped fighting after I left high school.”

“Why?”

He glared up at Thor. “I don’t want to be that angry anymore.”

“Then,” Thor started, low. “Let. Go.”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to hurt you!”

Thor blinked down at him, lips parted. They slowly lifted into a smile and Loki hated it. Hated that the words were forced out of him.

“You can’t hurt me.”

Loki was shaking his head. His eyes were going blurry and he hated that he was going cry there on the ground, cold and sore, pinned by an immovable smiling creature who refused to let him up.

“You can’t hurt me,” Thor said again, voice gentle. “So let yourself go.”

Loki heaved in a deep breath and shouted, shouted until his throat was raw. He pivoted his hips and, without thinking, spit in Thor’s face. It hit him on the cheek, too close to the eye. Thor winced and that’s when Loki kicked his legs, forcing Thor back. He braced a knee on his stomach and hit him. Hit him again and again, like in the woods. But he hit like he meant it. And he hit like he wanted to.

Thor’s blood painted a sweep beneath him, before he heaved Loki off him. Loki’s head only just glanced the concrete floor that time and he groaned, dazed from the pain of it. He’d have a headache for a few days, but he knew it wasn’t serious. Thor wiped at his cheek.

It was different, then, when Thor dragged a hand low over his back, wrapping one arm around his waist to haul him to his knees. Loki felt different, drained, present. He let Thor move him around, didn’t mind that he wasn’t throwing any punches. Didn’t mind when Thor wove a hand through his hair and pulled back, Loki’s neck moving with it.

Loki stayed there on his knees, back arched, one hand coming up to find Thor’s arm around his neck.

“I’m done,” he whispered, voice broken.

He couldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t want to fight anymore, least of all Thor. He was done, he was ready to collapse and wanted to be away from the dark corners of the warehouse, his own head. Wanted to stand out in the wind and suck in lungful’s of fresh, freezing air.

“Not yet,” Thor breathed into his ear. Loki shivered at the sound. Shivered worse when he felt a warm hand smooth down over his spine, running briefly over his scar, the touch close to burning. It was gone as soon as it had come, down, down—and Loki closed his eyes, knowing what was next.

Thor’s hand left and came back down with enough force it rocked him forward and Loki realized only when a rough sound tore its way from his throat that he was hard. That he didn’t care that he was.

Thor spanked him again, face pressed to the bend of his neck. Loki turned towards him, his hand tight on Thor’s arm where it no longer kept the breath from him but held him up, supported him. He felt like he could have collapsed at any moment if Thor hadn’t been holding him up.

“More,” Loki heard himself say.

Thor obliged him, bringing his hand down hard. Loki repeated the word, voice lost somewhere in the echo of the room. He couldn’t hear anymore, not the people outside the room, not the music, not anything aside from Thor and his heavy breathing, the small pleasures bubbling their way up his throat.

Thor switched his grip on him. Moved a hand to his throat instead and held firm, held him close. Loki wanted to bite at him, his thumb, his skin, his lips, anything he could reach. He stayed rooted where he was, knees aching against the hard floor beneath them.

Thor’s hand settled on his lower back, then down to his ass and didn’t move. It was too much, all at once, and Loki’s hands flew to his belt and fly, undoing them as fast as he could manage. Thor got the hint and helped him along by gripping the back of his jeans and yanking them down around his thighs. Loki bit his tongue near to bleeding when Thor finally touched him, skin on skin. He grabbed at his ass and Loki almost cried out, realizing his cock was trapped by his jeans.

He hissed and Thor groaned against his throat. “God, you’re beautiful. You don’t even know it. You want this so badly, but you won’t let yourself ask for it.”

“I shouldn’t have to,” he rushed out when Thor spanked him again. The sound rang clear, sharp and pleasant in the silence.

Thor bit his earlobe, hard. Slapped his ass again and Loki keened, the sound choked off. He thrust forward, refusing to free himself. Thor would do it, he had to.

“Just because you shouldn’t doesn’t mean you can’t,” Thor told him hotly. Another slap.

“I won’t.”

Another slap. It hurt, hurt so much. He wanted it to stop and continue all at the same time and he couldn’t reconcile that in his head. He’d never experienced something so, so—

Another slap. “Thor,” he said, the sound all grit.

“Plead for it.” Thor was kissing at his ear, laving all along it with his tongue and biting and Loki never realized how much his ear was tied to his groin. Every lick an ache, ever bite a lance of almost-pain. It made him want more. “Let yourself go.”

“You’re making this very hard,” Loki told him, breathless. Another slap and he locked eyes with Thor, silently asking him for more. Hoping he would catch the hint and not have to say anything else.

“That’s all you, baby.” Thor grinned that wicked, clever grin Loki couldn’t stand and when Thor brought down his hand again, he moaned. He moaned long and loud and Thor’s hand vanished from around his neck to wrap deftly around his straining cock, freeing him from the painful catch of his jeans. The cool air hit his skin and he gasped.

“Fuck you,” Loki cried out.

Loki turned bodily into Thor, letting his weight fall entirely on him as Thor worked him with one hand and spanked him with the other. Loki gripped Thor’s sleeves until his fingers ached all over again.

Another slap. Then another. Loki’s eyes were wet, staining Thor’s nice sweater. He’d put the fresh blood there. He had. Another slap. He pressed his mouth to Thor’s neck, feeling the tension there. The strain from the force of how hard he was spanking him. Thor was breathing hard; his skin was hot and red, he was bleeding and had to be in his own fair share of pain but Loki could tell how controlled he still was. Controlled in spite of everything.

Loki mouthed at Thor’s neck, lost in the feeling. Everything was blurring. Two more slaps, ten, maybe more. He couldn’t tell anymore.

Thor was holding him too tight, gripping him at the base, refusing him the only thing he wanted at that moment.

“Thor.”

“Not until I hear you say it.”

“No.”

Thor laughed. He fucking _laughed_ and Loki was hard and he wanted his release, he wanted it so fucking badly. Thor squeezed tighter and Loki thought it was punishment. He felt dizzy.

“You need to learn you don’t get your way so easily in the real world.”

Another slap. “I’ve known that for a long time.”

Thor let out a moan of his own, to Loki’s pleasant surprise, when he bit down on the line of his neck. He sucked hard, wishing for a mark, and he knew it was childish, knew it was ridiculous. Loki wanted the others to see. To _know_. To guess when they saw their precious leader walk amongst them.

“You can let go, here. You’re safe. Let me mean that to you. Let me take care of you.”

Loki’s thoughts were reeling. He couldn’t comprehend what Thor was telling him. It was too much, too much—

“Please, Thor. Please, please.” He was babbling but he didn’t care. Didn’t care about anything anymore. It only mattered that Thor was touching him, and that he touch him more.

Thor’s hand rubbed over the stinging skin of his backside before trailing down, down, lower still. Then he pushed a firm finger against the center of him and Loki lost himself. He pushed back, wanting more. Wanted all of Thor, in that moment, forever.

It was only after several long moments that he realized Thor was wiping his hand on his own thigh. Loki tried to focus on the movement, the spend staining Thor’s pants. He’d come and not even realized it.

Then Thor was holding Loki’s face, cradling his jaw in both hands.

“You don’t have to reign yourself in all the time, Loki.” Thor murmured to him, holding him close. Loki slowly wrapped his arms around Thor’s neck. “You can take that stick out of your ass, you know.”

Loki laughed. Laughed for the first time in a long time.

“Let’s get you home,” Thor told him, smiling faintly.

Thor kissed him and Loki had never felt so good.

\--

Loki trailed after Thor to his cabin. He kicked off his shoes on the front step and walked inside, collapsing on the loveseat. Thor’s smile was fond when he coaxed him back up and pointed for him to sit on the bed. He immediately fell back, enjoying how plush Thor’s bed was.

Loki was happily drained, bone-tired. He felt something close to drunk.

Thor got him a glass of water and gingerly removed his jacket, slid his shirt over his head. Loki closed his eyes when Thor paused, knowing he was staring at his scar again. Gentle hands settled on his hips, then went to undo his belt and pull off his pants. He lifted his hips to help but couldn’t be bothered to do much else. He let his legs dangle over the edge of the bed. Thor pulled off his socks and rubbed at each heel before stepping away altogether.

He snuck a look around the room and saw Thor digging through his dresser. He pulled his shirt over his head and Loki drank in the sight of his smooth, freckled skin. He torso was endless. He wondered how Thor didn’t just spill over himself when he walked. He shrugged out of his own pants but didn’t move to put anything new on.

Thor glanced back over his shoulder and met Loki’s stare. “Drink your water.”

“You clean up your blood.”

Thor sniffed. “Yeah, that’s next.”

“I want to,” Loki said, sitting up. “Let me do it.” Thor watched him for a long moment, considering it. Then he nodded before going into his bathroom. He brought out another glass of water and a rag, and a small medical kit. “Very professional,” Loki told him.

“No one around here will punch as hard as you. I haven’t bled this much in ages. Sometimes I worry they think I’ll get angry with them, or something.”

Loki snorted at that, coming around to grab the rag and water while Thor took his place sitting. Loki set the glass down and wet the rag, eyeing Thor for all the places he was bleeding from.

“No stitches needed, at least.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I won’t say I’m sorry.”

Thor smiled. “I wouldn’t want you to.”

Loki smoothed the rag over his forehead, his cheek, his jaw. Blood ran pink down his neck and over his chest. Thor caught stray drops with his thumbs, spreading them out over his skin before they dried.

“Stop, you’ll be covered in it,” Loki said. Thor listened to him. “Why are you being so good?”

“Am I usually not?”

Loki raised an eyebrow, but Thor wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at his scar again. Loki ignored it. He grabbed the antiseptic instead, rubbing it smooth across Thor’s skin.

“What is this from?” Thor finally asked.

“That’s my million-dollar question.”

Thor laid his palm flat on Loki’s stomach and he inhaled sharp for it. He spread his fingers wide before moving around to smooth over the scar.

“I don’t have that kind of money,” Thor informed him. “But I want to know anyway.”

“You really don’t. It was a long time ago.”

“So was Balder,” Thor muttered. Loki felt his heart drop at that.

But Loki was still Loki and so he said, “Tell me something new about yourself first.”

Thor rubbed his thumb over his side. “Another secret?”

“Yes.”

“My mother’s name was Frigga. But she wasn’t the one who gave birth to me. She taught me to hunt—I mean actually hunt. What it means. How it affects you and those around you. How to connect yourself with what you’re killing, before you kill it. She taught me everything Odin didn’t, and for that reason I loved her like she was the one who carried me.”

Thor breathed out slow, winced only once when Loki cleaned the needle thin split along his jaw, cutting through his beard.

“This one might scar,” Loki told him, frowning.

“A good scar then,” Thor said, so easy, like it was nothing.

He smiled up at Loki like Loki was something to him. Something much more than he really was, and it made his skin prick cold.

“What happened to her?” Loki asked him.

Thor grabbed the rag and sat it down, knowing Loki was done. His hands settled lazily on Loki’s sides, tender and strong all at once.

“I don’t know. She left when I turned twenty-two. Haven’t heard from her or seen her since. I always thought she was dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

Thor shook his head, his mouth twisting into something sad.

“Don’t be,” he said. “She was something of a hippie. She liked to wander around, travel to places. Funny places most people didn’t want to go. She told me once she’d mapped all of Utah’s gas stations for fun in the sixties and I’m not sure she wasn’t joking. Told me she planted something at each stop.”

“Maybe she’s in Cuba.”

Thor looked up at him. “Why Cuba?”

“Good cigars?” Loki suggested. He pulled at Thor’s hair tie until gold spilled loose over his shoulders. He ran his hands through from scalp to ends and Thor hummed.

“More likely somewhere in Asia. Maybe the Middle East. She wouldn’t stop talking about Israel for a year when I was seventeen.”

“I heard they have great falafel.”

Thor laughed, quiet and low. “I appreciate the effort you’re making, but quit while you’re ahead. You’re approaching the territory of _rude_.”

“Just untraveled is all.” He dragged his fingers through Thor’s hair a second time.

“Same difference.” Thor tugged at Loki’s sides until he realized what Thor was asking. Thor shimmied up onto the pillows, Loki at his side, hands toying with the ends of his long hair.

“Now you,” Thor reminded him, lips pressed to his forehead.

“Sif does know this story.”

Thor hummed. “You love her deeply.”

“She’s my family,” Loki said. “As for the scar, it happened when I was ten. My father was throwing knives in the backyard and wouldn’t let me or my brother in the house. I think he thought he was in the circus, he was so high.”

Thor made a displeased sound and buried his nose in Loki’s hair. He drew him up for a kiss and Loki gladly accepted. Thor ran his fingers slow over the jagged line on his side and Loki shivered.

“Doesn’t look like they took you to the hospital when it happened.”

Loki sighed. “They didn’t. I stitched myself up. It never healed right.”

Thor frowned. He rose to his elbows and started to get up and Loki panicked, thinking he’d made a mistake in telling him. It was too much. Too private. Too personal. Horrible, horrid, horrendous excuse for a secret—

But then Thor rubbed his palm across his eyes, sniffed and cleared his throat. Then he slid down the bed, on his side, and pressed kisses all along Loki’s abdomen. His stomach flipped, nervous as Thor worked his way down. Thor paused at Loki’s scar and kissed that too.

“You hate him.”

“I do,” Loki said. “My brother too. He took everything from me.”

“I don’t. And he didn’t.”

Loki was confused. “Why?”

Thor met his eyes. “Because everything you’ve ever suffered has led you here, to me. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Loki couldn’t really think of an answer to that.

Thor resumed his steady work down the flat plane of his stomach, reaching his underwear. He was tired, yes, but he still felt a jolt go through him at the sight of where Thor’s mouth was heading.

He pulled the band of his underwear down and pulled those off too, throwing them somewhere on the floor with the rest of their clothes. Loki wound his fingers in the sheets, feeling Thor’s hot breath on him.

Thor buried his nose in the hair at his groin and sniffed, deeply, and Loki thought it was the filthiest thing anyone had ever done, especially to him. But he was hard again within moments and then Thor was sucking him down, all hot, wet mouth and tongue and his _hands_ —

Thor hummed after he swallowed, and Loki barely registered when he stood to go rinse his mouth. He turned off the light and had Loki shift so he could pull the covers over them both. He slung an arm over Loki’s side, content to cuddle after everything.

Loki felt himself slipping away to sleep when Thor spoke.

“Tomorrow I have to take care of some things. Feel free to stay here for however long you want, have Sif over. I have a bottle of Reyka in the bottom cabinet. Help yourself, alright?”

Loki hummed an affirmative and felt Thor smiling against his ear.

Somewhere, far away and on the very edge of sleep, Loki heard Thor’s quiet, “And thank you.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to the playlist here: https://8tracks.com/mrhiddles/deep-black-wild-thorki-cult-au
> 
> Art by the lovely kamthe here!: http://kamthe.tumblr.com/post/179444141366/im-participating-in-thorki-big-bang-this-year-and
> 
> Check out my fandom Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mrhiddles

In the morning, Loki woke up alone. He stretched and inhaled Thor’s scent from his pillow, shamelessly indulging himself.

Thor didn’t leave him a note, and it took Loki a few minutes before he remembered what he’d said before sleep. Busy, like always.

He got up and showered, not missing the fact Thor used flowery shampoo. He brushed his teeth with Thor’s toothbrush and pulled on his clothes, amused how Thor left them where they were thrown the night before.

Loki caught site of the coffee table where he’d sat with Natasha days earlier. He grabbed a glass of water and sat on the loveseat, thinking.

The card he’d seen that day was gone. Loki hadn’t been able to place where he’d seen something like it before that day, but just then, sitting on the couch he realized. His mother, when he was eight. Powder spread out on the glass, smudged all over with fingerprints. He remembered because he used to climb underneath and make faces up at her as she bent over and sniffed.

He only learned later, when he was about eleven, what cocaine was. As a kid, he just thought it was medicine that made his mom happy. She always used old credit cards that didn’t work anymore to cut her lines. Or that were stolen.

Why did Thor have a line cutting card? He didn’t seem like the type.

Loki’s stomach twisted over on itself, thinking through every moment he’d spent with Thor since coming to Norway. He was always calm, high but still in control that one time with the shroom, angry when he needed people to obey him—and even then, Loki was hesitant to use the word to describe him. Firm, demanding maybe but not anything near furious. The closest he got was the fight when he told Tyr to leave.

Thor was never jumpy, or scatter brained, or fixated on trivial things. He never ran, had more of a strolling gait really, sauntering around like he owned the place—which he did, so that was warranted. He never spoke a mile a minute, never tripped over himself. His hands never shook.

He wasn’t a scratcher.

Loki remembered how his mother would always hug him tight, her nails digging into his small arms, and cry after. He’d have to sit there for hours until she fell asleep. Stare at the sores she couldn’t cover on her chest to pass the time.

He knew it wasn’t Thor’s. It couldn’t be. But it couldn’t have been Natasha’s either.

Whose was it?

A knock sounded on the door, loud in the tension he’d built for himself. He shook himself out of it and let Sif in.

She took one look at his face and yelled. “Holy shit, what happened to you?” She glanced around Thor’s cabin. “I came here to congratulate you on finally getting in the Big Boss’ pants and now I have to ask if he hits you—”

Loki held up his hands and took her coat before she could argue.

“Remember that warehouse we saw? The one with no windows, by the fields?”

She just glared at him.

“Turns out they have wild—”

“If you say orgies right now, I swear to god—”

“Parties. They throw raves. It was just house music and people dancing, and then in the _back_ room—”

“Please don’t be orgies,” she whispered to herself.

“Amateur fights. Boxing. Mixed martial arts. We fought.”

“Praise be to the heavens it wasn’t an orgy.” A small panicked laugh bubbled its way from her throat. “Your whole head looks like a bruise.”

He made a face. “Only half of it, don’t exaggerate. He got me with an elbow.”

Sif grimaced and reached out to poke gingerly at his cheek and temple. “You want any makeup to cover this, just ask. God, I’m having flashbacks to high school.”

“He looks worse, promise.”

Sif looked like she didn’t believe him, and he couldn’t blame her.

“I saw him but he was wearing shades, so I didn’t get a good look at him. I’ll take your word for it.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “He was walking with Heimdall actually, but he looked upset. Like he had to go put out a fire somewhere.” She shrugged. “You sure he’s okay with me being here?”

“He suggested it actually. Said he has a bottle of Reyka in the kitchen, but I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s good vodka. Lemme at it.”

“It’s ten in the morning, Sif.”

She kicked off her shoes and laid back on the couch. “With the morning I’ve had, you’d also be considering day drinking.”

Loki found the bottle of Reyka tucked away, down near the oven. He poured them each a shot in regular drinking glasses and Sif downed hers before he even sat down.

“Ooh. That’s clean.” She pursed her lips. “So Fandral is undeniably smitten with me. Not sure how that happened.”

“You’re the shiny, fun, American girl.”

“Not even. He’s given me more wooden sheep than I know what to do with.” Loki gave her a look and she smiled, smug. “Plenty of oral too, but that’s beside the point.”

“Is it so terrible he likes you?”

“He said he loves me. He wants me to stay longer.”

“How long?”

Sif just grabbed Loki’s shot and threw that back too. “He just wants me to stay.”

“You have your degree to finish out.”

“Yeah I have my fucking degree. Another year and a half and then my Master’s and hopefully a PhD if I can swing it with grants and loans. I have plans, Loki. I have a lot of fucking plans, and none of them involve—” She jabbed a hand through the air.

“Falling in love?” Loki asked, batting his eyes at her.

She kicked his leg. “If anything,” she said, avoiding the admission. “He should come back with me. I shouldn’t have to put my life on hold for anyone or anything. Least of all for seventy-eight wooden goddamn sheep.”

“Wow.”

Sif sighed and sunk lower into the cushions.

“My thighs _hurt_ , Loki. I feel like I’ve ridden a damn horse for ten years straight. I can’t even walk right anymore.”

She sat forward and grabbed the bottle. Took a swig and closed her eyes.

“Think Thor would mind if I steal this?” she asked, holding the bottle close.

“Not really sure.”

She sighed again, tugging a stray curl from her face. “Tell me about your night. You look happy. Under the bruising and all.”

So Loki told her all of it. The only parts he left out were the exact conversation and the details of the secrets they’d shared. Thor’s admissions were his to keep, he was trusted with them. It felt good to have that.

“Is his dick big?”

“That’s all you got out of that? You’re disgusting. But I don’t know, haven’t seen it.”

“I’m halfway to drunk. And why not?”

Loki watched her take another swig and he debated what it would cost him to wrench the bottle away from her. Likely a finger, or two.

When he didn’t answer she stuck her feet in his lap.

“Sorry,” she offered. “I’m just wigged out from earlier. You have any idea what he might be pissed about?”

“None. He seemed more than fine last night.”

Sif wiggled her hips. “I bet he did,” she said. Loki bent her toe back and she yelped, laughing. “I never thought I’d say this, but I wish Natasha was still here. She’d know. And not because they were friends or whatever. Like, that girl could wheedle the secrets out of the worst criminals in the world with just a look, I bet.”

“She did have that vibe, didn’t she?”

Sif widened her eyes and finally handed the bottle over. Loki, grateful, took it.

\--

Sif stayed over all day. Since Thor didn’t have a television, she suggested they search for a laptop. But no luck there either. Just books, and more books, with the occasional stack of old National Geographic magazines from the 90s.

In the end, they dragged pillows and Thor’s comforter to the floor and watched movies on Sif’s phone.

Around five, there was a knock on the door. A solid whack that made the two of them jump. Loki crawled out from their tangle of comfort and opened the door to see Tyr standing there.

Tyr blinked wildly when he saw Loki in front of him. “You see Thor recently?”

Loki stepped out and put some distance between the entrance and Tyr. Tyr glared, not missing the movement.

“Not since last night.”

Tyr grinned and Loki saw two of his teeth were brown at the root, rotted.

“So, you’re ‘is new _boy_ , are you? Didn’t take long. You’re not the first, nor the last, eh.” He sucked on his teeth, a squelching sound that raised the hairs on Loki’s arms.

“Don’t know what you mean.”

Tyr swayed on his feet, coming back around to jab a finger in Loki’s face. “You think I missed ‘ow ‘e was all over you last night? Thor was all over you. I saw ‘im.”

“That’s what a fight usually entails, yeah,” Loki said, leaning away from him. He inched the door closed behind him, just shy of shutting it all the way.

“I make you nervous? Don’t want me around whoever you got in there with you?” Tyr laughed, a dark, gargling sound. “If she’s pretty enough to make Thor jealous, I wouldn’t ‘ave ‘er in there if I were you.”

“You should leave now.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll make you,” Loki told him. He could smell Tyr’s thick, clotted breath. He recognized the smell, knew it well. “You forget your favorite spoon in here? That’s why you popped over for a quick visit?”

Tyr narrowed his eyes. “None of your goddamned business, what I get up to in my time, _toy_. Fuck you. Fuck off.”

“Leave. Now.”

Tyr laughed, the sound more and more brittle the longer he went on. Loki considered pushing him off the steps, but didn’t expect Tyr to be the kind of person to know when to walk away.

“You think I’m scared of Thor and ‘is new little bitch? You think that’s what this is, ‘uh? You’re nothing compared to a fire! I—”

Tyr rambled on, lost in his own anger, starting to shout and shove his face in Loki’s—and that’s when Loki saw him.

Thor was making his way up over the hill when he caught sight of what was happening. Tyr didn’t notice.

Thor’s hand came down hard on Tyr’s shoulder and yanked him back, throwing him into the dirt. He swung on him, crouching low and grabbing the collar of Tyr’s shirt, practically in his face.

“What the hell is going on out here?” came Sif’s voice behind him. She joined Loki at his side and watched Thor shake Tyr on the ground. “Jesus, they’re like two dogs fighting.”

Loki couldn’t hear what Thor was saying but Tyr was rapt. He was lying there in the dirt, hands up, supplicant to his leader. Tyr nodded viciously, brow set low, and said something that had Thor quiet. He shoved him back in the dirt a last time before pointing towards the hills.

Thor didn’t move until Tyr gathered himself and stalked off, not looking back.

“I think it’s time for me to leave,” Sif muttered. She went back inside to grab her things.

“Sorry,” Loki whispered to her as she gave him a half hug in goodbye.

“No worries.” She slapped a hand across Thor’s arm when she passed him. “Nice taste in vodka by the way. I owe you a bottle.”

“She drank the whole thing?” Thor asked, turning around. He looked exasperated.

Loki smiled and shrugged, thankful Sif knew exactly how to dispel a bad mood.

\--

“I can’t believe she actually drank the whole thing.”

“You’re getting to know Sif.”

Thor shook his head, looking forlornly down at his empty bottle of Reyka. “She was even walking straight!”

Loki snorted a private laugh at that. “You should see her when she’s really drunk.”

Thor made a face. Loki walked to him and eyed Thor’s jaw.

“How’s the cuts and bruises?” he asked, trying not to focus on Thor’s hands hovering at his sides. “You sure I didn’t break your nose again?”

Thor looked bad. His beard was still faintly stained a cherry pink in places from the thin slash across his jaw and there was a new tiny bandage pasted over the cut on his forehead. It must have reopened sometime during the day. The bruising was all over, nearly purple around the bridge of his nose.

“I feel better than I have in a long time.” Thor hummed. “How’re your hands?”

“Sore, but livable.”

Thor leaned forward and kissed Loki’s nose. Then his cheek. He skirted his lips, placing half-kisses all around his face.

“What did you say to him?”

Thor went still and when he drew back, Loki could tell his mood had dropped.

“Like I said before. This place has problems like anywhere else.” Thor sighed and eyed the mess of blankets he’d built with Sif. “That is a poor excuse for a pillow fort.”

“Archeology was never my thing,” Loki said.

“You mean architecture?”

“I maybe had a touch too much vodka myself.”

Thor laughed softly at that and dragged Loki behind him to sit where he’d been with Sif.

“What did he say to you?” Thor asked him.

“It was nothing I haven’t heard before.” He wasn’t lying.

Thor’s eyebrows drew together. “Loki.”

He twiddled his fingers together in his lap before Thor laid a warm hand on them. His palm encompassed nearly both his hands together and it made him feel so small.

“Called me your bitch, essentially.” He shrugged when Thor glowered. “Like I said, nothing new. He smelled high besides.”

Thor clicked his tongue and glared hard somewhere over Loki’s head. Long moments stretched, and Loki had to fight with himself to keep from breaking the silence.

“One of the rules here,” Thor started, voice even. “One of the rules here is no unnatural substances. Shrooms are fine. Pot. Tobacco. I approve the alcohol that’s brought in. And that’s it.”

“I didn’t smell any of that. My father smelled like he did. Heroine smells like that.”

Thor squeezed Loki’s hands. “When Tyr first came to us, he was honest about the problems he had. After the last big move we had to make it got worse. He’s been worse. But I’ve been dealing with it. I see to him and he knows he can come to me.”

Loki held his tongue, knowing Thor probably wasn’t in the headspace to know his friend was likely far worse off than he knew. Loki knew people like Tyr. Knew what it looked like when an addict was in the throes of it.

“I’m sorry for what he said to you. That was uncalled for.”

“Maybe not entirely.” Loki shrugged again, halfway between truly bothered and relieved to be moving on from the subject of Tyr’s drug abuse. He never wanted to deal with that shit again.

Thor’s hand trailed off, sat in his own lap.

“You’re not what he called you,” Thor said slowly.

“It’s only been a few weeks that we’ve known each other.”

“Affection isn’t dictated by time.”

Loki smiled fondly, warmth spreading through him. “You say it like you’ve thought about it.”

“Of course I have. I care about you very much,” Thor told him, sincere. Loki met his eyes, saw the concern there.

“You must say that to all the boys you bring to bed. All your toys, as Tyr so affectionately called me?”

Thor recoiled like he’d been slapped. His hand twitched before he wormed his way between Loki’s own and threaded their fingers together.

“No,” he growled. Loki shivered. “Just you. Only you.”

“This isn’t just until I leave, back to New York?”

Thor held Loki’s hand close, brought it to his chest. Loki could feel the steady beat of his heart.

“You don’t want to leave here.”

“How do you know that?”

Thor pressed his mouth to Loki’s knuckles. Closed his eyes and just breathed.

“Because,” Thor told him, swinging his gaze up. “You know you’re mine.”

Loki felt a tingle down his spine at Thor’s words, the tone of his voice, the way he was looking straight into him. His neck felt hot.

“But people always leave.”

Thor’s brow creased, pressed his forehead to Loki’s knuckles. He moved and brought Loki down to him, his lips warm and soft and all Loki wanted.

“I’m not one of those people,” Thor whispered against his mouth.

\--

Another week passed quickly. Loki fed many of the animals during the day, making sure their hay and troughs were full before moving on to the fields to give out snacks of apples and pellets. He brushed the cows, transported crates of the milk others were bottling to the kitchens. He learned how to sheer sheep and secretly loved doing it, then sorted the bundles for scouring. The pigs were his favorite. Smart, soft, fat things that sniffed at his legs and his palm for treats when he visited them, happily waddling after him as he walked around.

It had become his job while in Bilskirnir, despite no one formally assigning him to it. Heimdall had even given him suggestions on which steers to avoid if he wanted to keep standing at the end of the day.

“You can go up to that one, if you like the idea of having your balls bit off,” Heimdall had told him one day, pointing to a particularly hairy cow in the distance. “It’d be a laugh. Go on, feed it a carrot.”

He’d never had a pet growing up. Sif’s apartment didn’t allow them. But being around the animals was calming in a way he couldn’t put into words. And he knew Sif would probably make fun of him for it if he told her.

Loki spent almost every night with Thor, having dinner with him, or just heading over late so they could sleep together. In the nineteen years he’d been alive, he’d never experienced the simple pleasure of just making out for hours and then falling asleep in someone’s arms. It was better, felt more real, falling asleep knowing Thor was there curled around him or hogging the covers. Loki had never slept so well.

Thor never seemed to have a moment to relax. If Loki saw him before eight at night, he was usually hustling somewhere else or talking to one or more of the community. He was rarely alone, always surrounded by his people. If he was off by himself, Heimdall usually found him before long, leaving Loki to retreat back to his corner of commandeering Thor’s home, spending time with the animals, or tagging along with Sif while she walked the perimeter and its few fences.

Saturday morning, after Loki got out of the shower, it was different. Thor announced he was taking him hunting.

“Took you long enough,” Loki had said. Thor just threw a thick sweater at him.

“Make sure to use this too,” he said, holding up an unmarked amber bottle of liquid.

Loki took it from him and reached for the cap.

“Not here! When we’re outside.”

Loki raised a brow at him but listened, tossing it into the duffel Thor had laid out on the bed. Loki pulled on the sweater and slipped on the vest Thor was lending him. All camo and neutral colors.

“This isn’t overkill? It’s misty out, it’s not like they’ll see us anyway.”

“Animals see more than we do. And preferably you’d have matching cargo pants, but I think mine might be too long for you. Your jeans will work fine. Just walk slow,” Thor said, smirking.

Thor went into the bottom drawer of his dresser and pulled out something black and conical.

At Loki’s questioning look he said, “Rifle scope.”

“Do I get to use anything or am I just going to be watching you hunt?”

Thor smiled his goofy smile. “Yours is in the truck.”

“Not that beast of a rifle?”

Thor tilted his head, zipping up his own vest after tucking in his thermals. “Oh no, that’s mine.”

“Good.”

“I think you’ll enjoy it. Hunting.”

Loki sat down, ready to go. “What makes you so sure?”

Thor shrugged.

“I just have a feeling.”

\--

They stopped by Thor’s truck before heading out. He grabbed his rifle and clicked the scope into place. Loki watched him sling the monstrous thing over his shoulders, hanging casually off his back, felt ill at the sight of it.

He’d never been one for guns.

“This is yours,” Thor announced, holding out a familiar knife.

“Is this a joke?”

It was the knife Natasha had forced him to use against her in the woods what seemed like so long ago.

“I’m giving you my knife,” Thor said, eyeing him oddly.

Loki choked down the questions he had. “Are we hunting very slow rodents?”

Thor laughed as he shouldered the front bench of his truck, shoving it forward to rest just shy of the dashboard. He pulled aside a black canvas covering some indiscriminate lump to reveal a large cooler and supplies. Loki spotted a med kit and case of water.

“You’ll see.” Thor drew the large black bow out from its confines and swung the seat back into place. He shut the door.

“I have no idea how to use that.”

Thor smiled and said, “I’ll be using this.”

Thor handed him the knife and he frowned.

“So I’ll be getting the rodents.”

Thor laughed again and Loki said, “You laugh too much.”

“You don’t laugh enough.” Thor grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him forward, planting a wet kiss to his forehead. Loki bit his lip to keep from smiling.

“Besides, it’s unlikely we’ll find anything today. It’s your first time out and animals are very prone to new trackers. They’ll hear you before you see them. This is more to get you used to the environment.”

They headed off into the woods, walking away from the entrance to the compound. It was still early morning and the sun spread through the trees, scattering golden light everywhere they stepped.

“What does Bilskirnir mean anyway?”

Thor smiled something private. “Frigga loved calling me it as a child. I would run everywhere, like a lightning-crack, she’d say. Loud and sudden and unavoidable.”

“Not an inaccurate description.”

Thor adjusted the rifle on his back.

“My people needed a home that told the rest of world they were unavoidable. That they are visible. Too wonderful to be ignored.”

“That big heart is going to get you killed one day,” Loki told him, the words almost stuck in his throat.

Thor just kept smiling. “Whenever that day comes, I know I’ve lived a full life.”

Loki nodded to the air, knowing Thor wasn’t looking at him. Thor’s words sat thick inside him. He wanted to yell and shout and say, _No, you can’t die, you won’t_ —and it scared Loki. Scared him because he’d never needed someone so much before in his life, and how fucking dare Thor make him care. Care enough that it hurt him to imagine a future without him in it and—

Thor stopped and Loki turned on him, preparing to say—something. Anything.

But Thor dug around in the duffel, oblivious to Loki’s inner panic, and brought out the amber bottle again. He grabbed up a rag tucked in a pocket and tapped out some of the liquid.

“It’s rancid!” Loki took a step back. Any other thoughts he had were wiped away as soon as the smell reached him.

“It’s doe urine, eco-safe. Come here.”

Loki pinched his nose, but stood still while Thor dragged the rag along his sides and pants. “It smells like bottled death.”

“It’s a natural mix of ingredients designed to imitate the scent of a doe in estrus. Doesn’t hurt them or us. Just smells like—”

Loki glared at him. “Death. In a bottle.”

Thor packed the bottle away, finished. “You’re cute when you’re disgusted.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Loki grumbled. “Why don’t you get any?”

“Usually I wouldn’t put it on anyone, but you’ve been clomping around for the last hour. I would like to at least try and catch site of a buck before we leave. This can only help you. We’ll just leave our gear in the truck when we get back.”

Loki tried to step lighter after that. He hadn’t noticed before but Thor was much quieter than him, even when they were crunching over leaves.

As Thor walked Loki watched him. Tried to emulate everything Thor did. He sniffed at the bark of tree trunks, stepped like he was trying his damnedest to float, took long stretches of time where all he did was close his eyes and listen. Loki wondered how long it took Thor to learn all of it. Wondered how different it must have been to learn from Frigga and then from Odin, a bear-killer.

Several times he wanted to talk, to ask Thor something, but every time he fell short. Thor looked completely in his element, hand tight on his bow, rifle slung so easy over his back, the duffel at his hip. He carried everything like they weighed nothing. When he breathed in, he looked serene. When he peered around at the ground stretching out before them in every direction, he’d step with purpose, deciding on some invisible path Loki couldn’t discern for anything.

The sun inched along in the sky, soft pink light settling over them as they trekked. Loki wasn’t bored, but he was doubtful their trip would be worth much. And they had a long walk back he wasn’t exactly looking forward to.

Thor was crouched, picking at dark leaves. He studied them intently.

Just when Loki opened his mouth to question what he was looking for, there was a loud crash in the distance, followed by the unmistakable rush of something running.

“There you are,” Thor said, eyeing the direction of the crash.

Loki touched his shoulder, a question. His heart was racing.

Thor stood and leaned close. “That was definitely something. We’re probably in a buck’s territory. These tracks mean deer.” Loki didn’t know how he could tell the difference. “Follow behind me.”

They went on. Something about the crash had woken Loki up to the possibilities of the forest. Everything seemed louder, Thor’s steps, his own, the break of branches in the distance. Every unknown sound cast something strange through him, his heart pounding, his skin too hot. He blamed the sweater and the rotted smell covering his clothes.

Thor went still after another crash sounded and Loki could see he was tense. Something had changed.

Thor kept his sight trained ahead on something Loki couldn’t see. He touched a hand to the rifle on his back and that’s when Loki’s heart jumped into his throat.

“Stay here.” Thor’s voice was low, severe in the quiet. “Whatever you hear, stay right here. I’ll come back for you.”

Then he was gone, headed off into the distance. He stepped behind a tree, and another, and then Loki was alone.

Loki listened, stayed where he was, stayed quiet. Held the knife at his side until his arm went sore, kept holding on.

The forest was silent around him, gone away with Thor.

He wanted to call out to Thor, wanted to reach into his pocket for his phone and call Sif. Wanted to run, away from the forest, to Thor’s red pickup and get Sif and leave straight for Oslo, back to New York. His head hurt from standing still for so long. His racing heart was making him sick to his stomach, lightheaded and untethered. But Thor told him to stay, and so he did.

When it was starting to get dark, black crawling overhead, Loki took a step forward. And nothing happened.

He took another step forward. Looked around with wild eyes.

Nothing happened.

Loki gripped the knife, his fingers tingling painfully back to life after not moving for so long. He started to walk.

He expected to hear bugs the farther he walked. Some great rush of life erupting around him as he went along, like in the movies. But nothing happened, nothing changed. It was cold and dark and silent save for the crunch of leaves and creaks of branches in the light wind.

There was a loud shout and he whipped around. He couldn’t tell if it was a man, it sounded like a man. It also sounded like an animal in pain. He couldn’t tell, couldn’t tell, couldn’t tell—

He turned towards the sound and kept walking. He was trying so hard to be as silent as possible, but every step he took felt like failure.

More shouting, and it sounded like more than one person. More than just Thor. He couldn’t make out what was being shouted.

Loki swallowed past his dry throat and said Thor’s name to the wind. But it came out a whisper and he cursed himself for it.

A gunshot rang loud, a massive sound popping his ears, and then Loki took off running.

Branches whipped his face where he ran through thick trees, wispy little things that stung and scratched at him. He ran and he ran, skidded down a small decline and still he ran.

The silence was what had him scared. It was silent, why was it silent, where was the shouting and shooting and where was Thor—

Loki broke through a thicket and nearly missed the camouflaged mass lying in the dirt. It was Thor, looking up at Loki. He looked dead.

But then Thor blinked and Loki moaned a small sad sound.

Loki fell to his knees, the knife thrown to the side, and grabbed Thor’s face, swept the hair out of his eyes. Thor just kept looking up at him. He clutched his side.

“You’re bleeding,” Loki breathed.

Thor huffed a weak laugh. “That damn deer got me.”

Loki knew he was lying. It was the first outright lie he’d ever told Loki. But he didn’t press it. He pushed Thor’s shirt up and away and saw a three inch long gash, bleeding freely.

“It’s not deep,” Thor mumbled up to him. He tried to sit up but Loki held him down. “Loki, clean it and stitch me. Use the bag.”

Thor winced but didn’t try to sit up again. Loki kept a hand on his wrist as he looked around, finding the duffel and rifle on the ground a few feet away. He found the med kit and dragged the rifle to his side. The barrel was warm.

“You don’t need that,” Thor whispered up to him.

Loki didn’t feel like they were alone. He ignored him and told Thor to hold his shirt up. Thor obeyed.

He pulled out the small bottle of hydrogen peroxide and tore off the spray nozzle, holding it suspended over the pulsing wound.

“This is gonna hurt, Thor.”

“You can’t hurt me,” Thor told him, voice strained.

Loki poured half the bottle over the wound, watching it fizzle as Thor groaned long and low. He used a clean rag to wipe away the excess and did it again.

“Don’t think that’s a little much?” Thor wheezed, glaring at him. Loki laughed, panicky and too adrenaline filled to sound entirely right. He knew Thor would be okay.

“Better overkill than unsure,” Loki said, voice shaky.

He found a suturing kit and his fingers shook as he found the little plastic rip away pack for a fresh needle. He didn’t know how this worked. He opened it and the string felt like it was too thick. But Thor was waiting so he held his breath and pinched his fingers around the gash, squeezing the skin together.

_Just like when I was little_ , he thought to himself.

He tried to ignore the way Thor grunted when he pushed the needle through the first time, the string gliding easily. He tied the end and pushed through the next. The wound took twelve stitches and Thor kept quiet through them all, breathing ragged. Loki wiped the new blood away and tossed the needle back in the kit.

Loki ripped through a pack of bandages, the little white squares flying everywhere. He took two and placed them over the wound. He found medical tape and used too much making sure they wouldn’t become displaced.

“We need to get out of here,” Loki told him.

“You’re being paranoid. It was only a deer. Antler got caught on my vest when he charged me. My fault.”

“Stop talking,” Loki pleaded. “Just shut up.”

Loki checked his phone. Four missed calls from Sif and a few worried texts. He tried calling her but it dropped. Tried again and the same thing happened. No service. Thor’s phone did the same.

Thor braced himself up on his hands before Loki pulled him to standing. Loki propped him against a tree and Thor watched him as he gathered up the rifle, throwing it over his shoulders along with the duffel and bow.

“Too much stuff, give me something to carry,” Thor said.

“Fuck off.”

Thor coughed a laugh and Loki said it again, looping an arm under and around him, holding his weight.

“God, you’re fat.”

“I am not.”

“Tell that to my back when I have to ice it later.”

“What did I ever do to deserve you,” Thor asked quietly. Loki suspected he wasn’t meant to hear it.

When he cast a quick glance at him, he saw Thor was smiling to himself. His eyes were drooping, so he shook him.

“Don’t pass out on me,” Loki demanded, eyeing where to go next.

\--

It felt like hours trying to get back to the main dirt road, but the trees were starting to look familiar. The sky was pitch black and stars were shining over them by the time Thor grunted a small sound.

Loki helped him lean against a tree. “What’s wrong?”

Thor tilted his head down. “My phone,” he said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled it out. “I got a text. There’s service.”

Thor sent a text off while Loki called Sif. She picked up before the first ring was over.

“Where are you? I haven’t seen you since yesterday and no one knows where you are.” He’d never heard her sound so worried before, knew she was scared.

“We went hunting. Thor’s hurt,” he bit out, eyes trained on the ground. He didn’t want to see Thor’s face just then. “I’ve been dragging his ass for hours.”

“Hey,” came Thor’s voice from across him.

He heard sniffling on the other end of the line and knew Sif was trying to keep it out of her voice. “You aren’t lost, are you?”

“No, Thor’s been directing me. It’s just slow going.”

“Good,” she sighed. Another sniff. “I’m headed to the edge of the woods. I’m—hold on.” There was a pause and a lot of shuffling. Then, distantly, he heard, “Heimdall, what is it, I can’t really—No, no.” Another pause, then her voice was clear. “Heimdall said Thor just texted him saying to meet you. I’m going to go with him.”

“Yeah, that’s good.” He looked to Thor, who looked exhausted and pained, a blood stain long dried on his vest, but otherwise fine. “Heimdall can carry him.”

“You’re alright? You’re safe?” Sif asked him.

The weight of the rifle on his back was heavy then and Loki wanted to toss it into the woods. Never lay eyes on it again.

“Thor’s the one who’s hurt.” Then, more quietly. “Hurry.”

They hung up and Thor held out a hand to him. Loki stayed where he was.

“Don’t do that,” Thor told him.

“Don’t lie to me.”

Thor glowered. He didn’t lower his hand. Loki stepped into his space and Thor twisted his fingers in Loki’s vest, unzipped it. He maneuvered a hand under his sweater and spread a palm flat across Loki’s chest, warm against his skin. He couldn’t hide the thundering of his heart.

“You’re panicking. You’ve been panicking since you found me. I’m not going anywhere.”

Loki shook his head. “You can’t promise me that.” The words sounded too small to his own ears.

“I’m not leaving you, Loki,” he said, voice hard.

Loki stepped closer and kissed him. Thor’s breath was loose and shuddering, but Loki kept kissing him. He wanted to take Thor’s pain, snatch it away and cast it to the wind.

When he pulled back, Thor’s eyes were lowered. “I’ll tell you everything when we get back. I just want you safe. I need to keep you safe.”

“How far away are we from the road?”

“Not far.”

Loki adjusted the duffel before letting Thor sling an arm over his shoulders again. He limped along but Loki couldn’t help but notice that Thor was trying to limp faster than before.

Loki got another text after about an hour later. It was Sif, and soon enough he could hear her shouting through the trees. A floodlight had been dragged in front of the cars and cast the entrance to the forest in white, casting long shadows.

Heimdall was with her, but it was only them. Loki wondered why Fandral or Frey wasn’t with them.

Heimdall took Thor’s weight, and his height allowed Thor to stand more easily. Sif flung her arms around Loki’s neck and squeezed until he couldn’t breathe.

“You’re an idiot. What did I say about going into the woods alone?”

“I’m sorry.”

Sif pinched his neck before letting go and looking over Thor. “You look like shit.”

“And I just remembered you drank all my Reyka. It was the only thing keeping me going all these long hours. Aside from Loki’s stellar mood.”

Loki met his eyes and Thor was smiling at him. That familiar, goofy grin persisting through the pain of what Loki knew wasn’t an antler wound, was something much worse.

He loved Thor.

It wasn’t some great revelation. He just looked at Thor and knew that he loved him. It sat in him, like a quiet little secret to hold close. He wondered if Thor could tell.

Heimdall laughed. Everyone turned to him.

“I didn’t know you could laugh,” Sif said, a little shocked.

“It’s rare,” Thor told her. “Can we go find somewhere to sit now, preferably my car?”

Heimdall looked to Loki. “You did good, kid,” he huffed. Then he was helping Thor walk away.

Sif held a hand up to keep Loki back. “I heard a gunshot.” She eyed the rifle on Loki’s back. “And Thor wouldn’t be standing, much less alive if it was from that thing you’ve got.”

“He wasn’t shot. I think he fired it. I got there too late to see, but there was shouting. I heard shouting before it happened.”

Sif pulled the hood of her jacket tighter around her ears. “Something’s off about this place.”

Loki bumped her shoulder with his and they started walking. Ahead of them, Heimdall was speaking in Thor’s ear.

“You think?” he muttered under his breath.

Sif’s hand found Loki’s and squeezed before letting go. “Don’t go too far anymore, okay? Not until we figure this out.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Oh, and Loki?”

“Yeah?”

“Why the hell do you smell like a zombie vomited on you?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to the playlist here: https://8tracks.com/mrhiddles/deep-black-wild-thorki-cult-au
> 
> Art by the lovely kamthe here!: http://kamthe.tumblr.com/post/179444141366/im-participating-in-thorki-big-bang-this-year-and
> 
> Check out my fandom Tumblr (I'm also happy to answer more specific questions there!): https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mrhiddles

Thor was helped into the car by Heimdall, who wordlessly decided he’d be driving. Sif hopped into the bed of the truck and pulled Loki up. They hunkered down and braced themselves as Heimdall started driving at a pace just beyond too fast, through the small rolling hills of the compound.

They reached Loki and Sif’s cabins first, pulling to a stop. Loki jumped over the side and helped Thor out, hands itching to be on him, feel the weight of him. Heimdall let Loki lead Thor to his own cabin and Thor hobbled his way to Loki’s bed, leaving his rifle in the car.

“I’ll go find the others,” Heimdall announced. He hopped down the few steps from the front door and took off at a jog.

Sif got Thor a tall glass of water and he drank it down. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” she told him on a sigh. “What now? What happened?”

Thor didn’t answer her. “I’ve kept you up late enough as it is. Please go back to bed.”

Sif narrowed her eyes, but Loki said her name quietly, stopping her. Whatever she saw when she looked at him had her relenting.

“I’m not sleeping tonight. Let me know if you two need anything.”

Loki closed the door after she left. He went to the sink and got two more glasses of water. Drank half of one and filled it back up to bring to Thor.

He slipped off his boots, undid his vest and pulled off his sweater, then his pants and tossed them all outside to air out. He pulled on new clothes while Thor drank.

Thor set the second glass down, drained. Loki moved Thor’s hands away from his sides and unzipped his vest, pulled it off. He tossed it to the floor. Then he very carefully lifted Thor’s arms and sweater with them. Tossed those to the floor, too, Thor’s eyes following the movement. Thor laid back and undid his belt, which would have made Loki’s mouth dry any other day but just then he was unsettled. Loki helped him pull them off the rest of the way and let Thor sit there in his underwear.

The bandage was bloody again so Loki dug out the med kit.

“I’m redressing this.”

“Loki.”

Loki peeled off the tape quickly enough that Thor didn’t complain much. He gingerly lifted the bandage up and bit his lip when fresh blood seeped through. But it was bright and not dark, and he thought that must mean something good.

“Loki,” Thor repeated.

He found more antiseptic in his bathroom and used that in place of more peroxide. He swabbed the stuff thick over the stitches and was satisfied when only a little blood seeped clean at the edges. He rebandaged it quickly, not wanting to look at it anymore.

“I don’t think you’ll die.”

“That’s very reassuring, doctor.”

Loki laid down beside him. Thor’s hair tickled his ear. “Tell me what happened. I know it wasn’t a deer.”

“I thought it was, at first.”

“What was it really?”

“I’m handling it with Heimdall. He’s telling Fandral now. We’re taking care of it.”

Loki stared up at the dusty logs of the ceiling. “I told you about Helblindi. I told you about my father. I need you to tell me another secret.”

“This one has the potential to hurt you. I can’t have that.”

“It’s already hurt _you_ ,” Loki told him. “Has it occurred to you that I can’t have that?”

Thor’s breath fanned his ear and he realized Thor must be facing him.

“I told you before there were problems here.”

“Tell me what happened to you, Thor. I thought I was running to find you dead.”

“Look at me,” Thor whispered. Loki did. Thor’s eyes were the same stunning blue they’d always been, clear and bright. “I let Tyr into this community in the very beginning. He knew my father, knew him at the end, so I figured why shouldn’t he be a part of something so great. That was almost fifteen years ago.”

Loki took a shuddering breath. Thor’s hand found his and he laced their fingers together.

“Tyr is an expect tracker. I told you that once, I think. I taught him how, in the beginning. It let him bond with something better than his demons. He had a talent for it I didn’t expect, and he transformed it into something else. Found a purpose in it. Made it an activity for the ones who lived here to know how to prepare their own meals. But it was worse than that, he liked it too much. I had him moved to a different job, acquisitions and mergers—business talk for networking. He makes sure we get what we need from the bigger cities around us. Shoes, medicine, testing for when the kids reach college age, computers.”

He swallowed. “I thought he was doing better. But ever since the crash, since Barnes died, and Natasha left, and the problem with the police—he’s just been lost to us. He’ll have good days. But those have been less and less often as time goes on. He goes off on his own a lot, sometimes for days at a time and he’ll come back, fine. I always thought he was out in the woods, doing what I’d taught him.”

He squeezed Loki’s hand, almost too tight. “Then a few months back, Heimdall noticed a gun was missing from lockup in the security building. Just one. But one gun missing means someone here is lying. I spent weeks tracking down who could have needed a gun, who could have wanted one. It was only a week before Fandral brought you all here that I found it in Tyr’s things. Money too. It sent me into a spiral. I found out the compound’s money has been skimmed from the savings for years. There were drugs involved—not just what Tyr used, but a lot of drugs. He couldn’t possibly have used them all and expected to survive after, there was so much.”

“Was he buying and dealing?”

“That night in the kitchens, when I found you,” Thor continued, not answering him. “I thought you were one of his. I didn’t realize you were with Fandral’s new group.”

“I was with Natasha, though.”

“I didn’t see her. We were smoking and I didn’t realize. I thought you were alone and sneaking around.”

“When did you realize I wasn’t?”

“After a few minutes. You’re not the type.”

Loki snorted. “But.”

“But,” Thor went on. “After you left I kept looking around. I found stashes folded into the dough. I told the others I was with to go home for the night and I spent the rest of it picking out dime bags, threw out all the dough. I tasked Fandral with finding the rest.”

“He’s a tenacious guy,” Loki said, thinking of Sif.

“He is. He found a stash of bricks in the storage by the warehouse. It’s been a waiting game since then.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not so sure the police would help us if I asked them to. Tyr usually deals with them. He has to be getting his dope from somewhere, and he’s not gone long enough when he goes out to facilitate a supply and demand, no matter who it is he’s selling to.”

“You think the police are supplying him?”

“And he bags it for resell and they put it back out on the streets for a cut.”

“Jesus.”

“It’s a theory. I wasn’t sure he was even capable until—”

“Tonight, in the woods.”

“Last week was the tipping point, when I threw him to the ground. But yeah.”

“He shot you?”

“I tried to bring the gun up, but it went off into the trees when he rushed me. He was trying to grab it. He had a knife.”

“I thought it was a stab wound.”

“You’re too smart for your own good.”

“No,” Loki breathed, rolling onto his side to bury his nose by Thor’s cheek. “Just had a shit childhood.”

\--

Loki woke when it was still dark out. He tried to catch his breath without waking Thor up.

“What did you dream about?” Thor asked through the dark and Loki sighed.

Thor’s arm was under his head and sometime in the night Thor had pulled the blanket up around them. He sounded like he’d been awake for a while.

“Someone shot you and you split in half at the waist. I was trying to pick up your guts and put them back inside you, but you kept laughing about it and sidetracked me.”

Thor laughed lightly and held him closer. “You watch too much television.”

“Why do you keep your father’s gun?”

A long time passed with no answer. Loki wondered if Thor hadn’t heard him, or maybe he’d fallen asleep.

Then, he started. “I don’t remember my mother much. Not Frigga, but my actual mother. I remember she would play with my hair a lot. Call me her sun child. Then she disappeared one day. Then when Frigga came along, Balder came with her. I remember her being around the house, floating from one room to another. Called me her little ball of light and thunder, her crack of lightning and I loved her for it. She let me feel her stomach when she was pregnant, and I thought it was magic. When Balder was a baby, Frigga was sad. And Odin was around less and less. Then she wasn’t sad for a long time after that, until Balder was gone. And again, she wasn’t sad for a long time afterward. After I was an adult, she got sad again. I think the death of Odin brought up a lot of bad things for her.”

Thor rubbed at his mouth. “Then Frigga was gone. I always wondered why she left. I’ve tried to piece it together, her reason. I don’t blame her for leaving. After all, the first one to get out was my sister, Hela. It’s not like I never thought about taking off.” His breath fanned hot against Loki’s scalp. “After he got sick, she’d stand in the doorway of his study and stare at that rifle. She called it a monster. Said it held all the evils of man inside it. I thought she was being dramatic.”

Thor turned his face, brought up his hand to play with Loki’s hair, twisting it around his fingers idly. “I don’t know what happened to my first mother. But I know that rifle has something to do with it.” He rubbed his thumb across Loki’s cheek. “Maybe he used it to kill her. I can’t purge Odin’s blood from my veins. I can’t erase the knowledge he taught me of how to kill a bear. But I can hold onto that rifle. I can memorize the weight of it. I can learn the make and model and the ammunition it uses. I can understand what a bullet launched from the barrel can do to a person if I pull the trigger. But I don’t have to use it.”

Loki turned slow to see him, make out his profile in the dark. Thor shifted his thumb from Loki’s cheek to his lip.

“I keep it around because it reminds me I’m not my father.”

Loki’s thoughts were quiet with the way Thor was looking at him. He held Thor’s face and marveled at how his hair felt underneath his fingers as he swept it back.

“You never had that potential.”

Thor smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes creasing happily. Loki held him until they fell asleep.

\--

In the morning, Loki redressed Thor’s wound for the third time, pleased with the lack of bleeding. It seeped some in the night but didn’t stain the bandage too much. He considered that a victory for what it was. He scrambled some eggs on toast and they ate in peaceful silence together.

Thor felt better too. He stood on his own and despite his pain, insisted he walk unaided, no matter how long it took him. He did need help getting into his truck again though, which Loki was quick to do.

“You and Sif are learning to shoot today,” Thor told him when he climbed into the driver’s seat.

“You think he’s coming back?” Loki asked, turning the keys in the ignition.

Thor just glared out into the fields as Loki drove. “I don’t know. I’d rather we be prepared for the worst. He ran off last night, but I don’t know what he’s planning, if anything.”

“I doubt it.”

“I can’t afford to doubt. I have to prepare for everything.”

Loki glanced at him from the corner of his eye. Thor’s eyes were narrowed, concentrated out the window, wincing whenever they went over a bump. He was better, but far from well and Loki knew it.

“You can’t control everything all the time,” Loki said quietly.

Thor hummed but didn’t say anything.

“Thor?”

“Hm?”

“Where are we headed exactly?”

Thor directed him through a back way to the security building, cutting through a smattering of forest that allowed for transports to reach, where they wouldn’t disturb sleeping residents. Loki didn’t like it. It felt too open.

“You should block this off,” Loki said when he parked.

“Now you’re thinking.”

Heimdall and Fandral were there to meet them. Heimdall was his usual dour self but Fandral was noticeably frayed. He looked tired and his chipper demeanor was drained, leaving him slouched and paler than normal.

“How’s Sif doing?” Loki asked him.

The faintest smile split his mouth at that, his moustache twitching upward. “She’s well as can be. Same old Sif, ready for anything.” He sighed, world-weary. She’s already inside. This mess would be better if Natasha were here with us, though.”

“You didn’t call her Nadine.”

Fandral shrugged. “She never appreciated it. She’s more Natasha than Nadine these days anyway.”

Thor spoke to Heimdall in hushed tones, texting on his phone all the while. Heimdall gestured arrows with his hands, pointing towards the trees, then back towards the housing.

“What does that mean?”

Fandral turned for the building when the others started heading that way. Loki fell in step with him, endlessly curious.

Fandral didn’t look at him. “That’s her story to tell.”

Sif was at the edge of the door, tapping a cigarette when she saw them approach. She stamped it out on the ground before twisting inside.

She bumped her hip with Loki’s when he stepped in after the others.

There was a fold-out table laid out with a handful of pistols and five rifles. The doors to the wall cases were swung open, empty. Heimdall hovered a hand over half of them and Thor tossed his hand flippantly in answer to his silent question.

The sight made his stomach sour. He shouldn’t have eaten.

“How’re you two?”

“He’s better this morning, but I’m watching him.”

She shook her head. “And you?”

“I feel like something bad is coming.”

“I know what you mean. This sure as shit isn’t what I signed up for when I bought us plane tickets.” She turned to him and lowered her voice. “Heimdall’s told me almost nothing. I hope you know what’s going on?”

“Tyr stabbed Thor last night.”

“Fuck me,” she breathed.

“Just stay close to us. Whatever happens, we’re safe with Thor.”

Sif gave him a long look.

“I’m sorry I forced you here. I’m sorry I wanted to come so badly.”

“No, you’re not,” she said. She looked at Fandral as he stood by Thor’s shoulder, fingers twiddling together nervously as he looked over the guns Heimdall was gushing over. “Frankly, I’m not so sure I am either. Ask me again later.”

“I’m glad you have Fandral,” Loki whispered to her, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice.

She smiled, big and bright, not caring who saw. “And I’m happy you have Thor.”

\--

Loki went with a pistol. Sif went with a rifle.

She held it up, propped expertly on her shoulder.

“Good form,” Heimdall commented at the same time Loki asked, “Why do you look like you’ve done this before?”

She aimed it out towards the empty field, the animals for those particular acres having been ushered inside their barn hours earlier, lured by food. She adjusted her grip, inched her chin lower and shot into the distance, her shoulder barely moving back with the recoil.

“Elbow has to be higher,” Heimdall said.

“Will do,” Sif muttered, doing just that.

She shot another round. “Nice,” Heimdall told her.

“Sif,” Loki said.

“Heimdall’s been teaching me some things the last few weeks.” She shrugged. “Knife’s better though.”

“Sif.”

“You have your fighting, I have my knife. I’m good with it, too.” Her eyes lit up and Loki couldn’t find it in himself to argue.

She lifted the end of her long shirt, Fandral’s he suspected and there, strapped to her hip was a knife, short but useful. He wondered if she knew how much she had in common with Natasha after all.

“Don’t we make a pair,” he sighed and she laughed.

For Loki, Heimdall set up targets; beer cans on a block of wood some thirty feet out.

Heimdall instructed him to plant his feet where comfortable and hold his arms out. It felt unnatural and awkward and he hated it. Pulled the trigger fast just to get it over with.

“Lower your shoulder and raise your left elbow. Step forward. Again.”

He did and shot again.

“Move to the left. Again.”

Loki did. Shot again.

He hit one can and Heimdall nodded, satisfied. He was only allowed to stop after he hit two more cans.

Thor was laughing to himself when Loki frowned his way over to him.

“You’re not a very good cowboy, are you?”

“Ha ha. Fists are better anyway,” Loki mumbled angrily.

“With any luck, this all turns out to be unneeded.” Thor looked about to say more, but he stopped short, reaching for his phone.

His mood changed immediately when he answered. He brushed Loki’s arm before pushing himself to standing, walking off with a sour, “Any news on your end?”

Loki didn’t follow him.

\--

The rest of the day was tense. Loki could feel it building up all around him. The only part of the day that didn’t feel layered with dread was when he caught sight of the others who lived there, going about their lives like everything was fine, normal. That Thor hadn’t been stabbed in the middle of the forest the night before and left to die by someone they trusted.

“None of them know,” Heimdall had said when he was caught staring out at the passersby.

“Why not?”

“A good leader gives his people no cause to needlessly panic.”

“Is it needless, though?”

Heimdall considered him. He scratched at his grey-speckled beard. “I’ve known Tyr since we were boys. I’ve never known him to resist holding a grudge.” He blinked. “So no, not needlessly I’d say.”

“You should tell Thor that.”

“I trust him. He’s a good man.” Then, “I’ve told the people to come to the cafeteria for a mandatory meeting tonight. I want them where I can see them.”

“Just in case.”

Heimdall’s mouth was a somber line.

“Just in case, yes.”

\--

Loki was with Sif and Thor when he saw the residents slowly funnel towards the cafeteria. Heimdall was already inside, checking the doors.

“Fandral’s blocked the eastern entrance,” Thor announced after a look towards his phone. “He’s heading our way.”

“I’ll go meet him,” Sif said. Loki watched her head off.

“You did well today,” Thor said from behind him.

Loki turned towards him. “All this praise I’m getting lately, I should have moved here sooner.”

“You know what I mean,” Thor said, smiling. “I know you don’t like this stuff, the guns, the planning, the tension. Drugs.”

 _You, hurt_ , Loki added in his head.

“I’m proud of you,” Thor finished. “Of what you've accomplished here. Of what you have yet to do.”

Loki stepped into his space and Thor welcomed him, leaning forward to catch his lips. He bit and Loki keened. “People can see,” he reminded Thor quietly.

“Let them watch, then,” Thor said, grabbing his hips. “You’re so good. You know that? You’re so lovely.”

“You must not know me very well then,” Loki said into his mouth, pushing his hips forward.

Thor groaned. “I do. All the bad and the good in you, I see everything. And I love it. I love you.”

Loki went very still in Thor’s arms. He hadn’t heard him right, surely? He hadn’t.

Thor tensed, hands gone slow at his sides. He was backtracking, going over every word he’d ever said, and cursing himself for it. Loki knew it, because he’d often done the same.

Affection wasn’t dictated by time. That’s what Thor had told him. Suddenly the words had gone from silent revelation to needing to be shouted. But Loki couldn’t speak. He couldn’t say anything.

“I overstepped,” Thor whispered, voice strained in a way Loki had never heard it.

“Say it again,” Loki whispered back, matching him, demanding it.

Thor’s hands dug into his sides for all of a moment and then he was dragging them up to Loki’s shoulders, his neck, framing his jaw and holding him so strongly, so secure, Loki felt he could fall away into him. Thor would hold him up. He wanted to feel like he did forever.

“I love you. I love everything about you,” Thor told him, words slow and burning through Loki. “All that you have been, all that you will be. Every terrible thing you’ve done and that’s been wrought onto you, and all the good too. You are mine, Loki,” he breathed, “As I am yours.”

“Those sound like wedding vows.”

“Not really the time to joke,” Thor said, lips twitching.

Loki covered Thor’s hands with his own. He ignored the way his eyes were wet at the edges. Ignored the way his heart raced and the way he felt so painfully full, so much the opposite of what he’d felt for so many years that he felt close to overflowing.

“I know,” Loki murmured past the rushing in his ears. It felt too loud, that at any moment the people watching them would erupt and dance and sing and he felt fucking ridiculous for it but, but—

But it was eerily quiet, and then someone was yelling.

“Fire!”

“Oh my god, it’s on fire. Fire! Run!”

“Wildfire!”

Thor dragged his eyes from Loki’s, into the crowd. His smile bled away to nothing, a question. Loki turned and saw people start and falter in quick little half-jogs, confusion quick to lance over their faces, their small children in their arms.

He turned to the hills the same time Thor did and his heart sank. Bile rose thick up through his throat because there on the horizon was fire, bright orange and wild, flickering red into the early night.

Then a single gunshot. The first had everyone jolting to a crouch, a wave of people one by one realizing what was happening, shuttering to their knees, shocked. Their peace was shattered.

“Wait,” Thor was saying as he tried to stand on his own.

Three more shots, rapid, echoing through the hills and his people were already screaming, running in all directions. Loki saw Skadi being dragged away by her parents, towards the entrance to the compound.

Ten feet behind her, he saw Sif and he snapped out of his daze.

He shouldered Thor’s weight like he did in the woods and they stepped as fast as they could manage before Sif ran to them. She didn’t look afraid, like that night. She was calm and controlled and her hands weren’t shaking like his were.

“Where’s Heimdall?” Thor asked her.

“Guarding the doors to the kitchens.” She had her gun over her back, thankfully out of her hands. “I want to bring people to the entrance, there’s cover in the cars. The shots came from the fields.”

“Do it,” Thor ordered, solemn.

Sif took one last moment to grip Loki’s shoulder and then she was gone, shouting for the others to follow. Heimdall ushered the rest from the cafeteria and soon there was a small sea of people moving past them.

An engine revved. Thor grinned when he saw his truck cresting the hill, Fandral driving. He careened toward them, navigating between people and the sharp dips in the terrain.

Fandral was wild-eyed and his shoulder was covered in blood. He nearly fell out of the seat.

“Tyr—” he gasped, fumbling past the seatbelt. “Police. He’s brought them. They’re shooting anyone they see—”

“Fandral,” Thor said, calm.

“The animals. They’re burning the animals!”

Thor’s mouth formed a grim line. “How many? Fandral, how many are there?”

“I got two. I got two.” He moved his shoulder and gasped. “Eight, I think? I think that was it.”

“Can you run?” Thor asked him, pushing at his shoulder. Fandral cried in pain but he slapped at Thor’s hands. “You can run.”

“Yeah, I can run, you _svinehode_!”

Thor patted Fandral’s cheek and smiled. “Go to the cars, Sif is there. Protect our people.”

Fandral frantically shook his head, no. “You need me. They’re spanning the field, coming straight for here. He wants you, Thor. They want to take over.”

“Let him come. We have the advantage of the buildings.”

“Thor, you can’t take him alone.”

“I’m not alone,” he said, tone final. He pushed Fandral away from him, toward the trees. “Go find Sif. And stay there.”

Fandral grumbled something under his breath but started running anyway, on hand pressed tight to his wound. Thor reached into his truck and grabbed his rifle. He unclipped the safety and checked the magazine. Frowned.

“Thor, you don’t have to do this.”

“Don’t talk about what you don’t know, Loki.” His voice was cold.  
   
“I know you’re planning to go out there and die for your people.”

Thor’s hands stilled for a quick moment, then he set about checking the scope. He held it at his waist.

“What if I am?”

“What happens to them? After you die?” Loki half shouted, fear cresting his heart. “You go out in a blaze of glory like a dumbass and then your people are left waiting, hiding behind cars, waiting to be slaughtered.”

“They have Heimdall and Fandral and now Sif. And you,” he said, meeting Loki’s eyes.

“They need _you_ , not me. I’m not their leader. I’m the new guy, the tourist. The one who’s fucking arguing,” he shoved at Thor’s chest, pressing him against the car seat. “With their self-righteous bastard of a leader instead of going after the freaks with the guns.”

Thor smiled, sad and small and Loki despised it.

“Tyr lost his way a long time ago. I have to end this. It’s my burden.”

“Fuck your burden. I’m not letting you walk to your death.”

“That’s not your decision, Loki.”

Thor pushed past him, heaving the rifle in his grip to bear its weight as he walked. He limped away and Loki was angry, he was furious.

“What happened to not turning into your father?”

Thor stumbled, stopping mid-step.

Loki steeled himself. “You’re telling me you’ll use that. You’ll kill him. But you don’t have to.”

He didn’t turn around no matter how much Loki was silently begging he would.

“We do what we must to survive,” Thor called to the wind.

Thor kept walking.

Loki turned and bolted for the road.

\--

Heimdall was already standing when Loki skipped to a halt. He was out of breath but the fear coursing through him kept his chin held high.

“Thor’s being Thor?” Heimdall asked him, unimpressed.

“Exactly.”

“Let’s go, then.”

Loki threw Sif a look, wordlessly asking her to stay and protect the others. She didn’t budge. Fandral saluted them as they left.

\--

Somewhere overhead a helicopter cut its way across the sky.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to the playlist here: https://8tracks.com/mrhiddles/deep-black-wild-thorki-cult-au
> 
> Art by the lovely kamthe here!: http://kamthe.tumblr.com/post/179444141366/im-participating-in-thorki-big-bang-this-year-and
> 
> Check out my fandom Tumblr (I'm also happy to answer more specific questions there!): https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mrhiddles

They didn’t take the truck because they didn’t want to be heard coming up on the fields. Loki hadn’t heard shots since the chaos first broke out, but the fire was spreading, fast. It had already reached the farthest cabins.

In the fields, he saw panicked cows running back and forth, one a burst of fire running around. He turned away and thought of Thor.

“Fire’s a bad death,” Heimdall said from beside him. He had a pistol in his hands as he crouched low, peeking around the corner of the warehouse.

“You don’t say?”

“Don’t be snippy.”

“Don’t be macabre.”

“I knew I didn’t like you,” Heimdall said, frowning. “You’re a brat.”

“Can you see anything?” Loki asked, ignoring him.

“Five in the field, but no more.”

Somewhere in the distance, Loki heard the _shuck-shuck-shuck_ of the helicopter. He hoped it wasn’t more police. The sound tapered off and then it was nothing but the distant roar of the fire once more.

“Any idea where Tyr would go first?”

“For Thor.”

Loki fought down the urge to push him over. “Then do you have any idea where Thor would go first?”

Heimdall opened his mouth.

“And don’t you dare say for Tyr.”

Heimdall huffed a quiet laugh. “He’d go to Tyr’s cabin, but it’s on fire right now. He lived at the edge of the woods. Our best bet is the barn. The others are hovering, so seems like a parley.”

“Can you not talk in tactical terms for once?”

“It’s typically a political term.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Heimdall stood and neared him, talking low and fast. “Thor will try to talk Tyr down. I’d much prefer he shoot him, but he’s not the type. They have a history, the two of them. That barn is the best bet we have of them both being inside, alive, for at least a little while.”

“So what are we waiting for?”

Heimdall rolled his shoulders, looked out to the trees at their backs.

“A sign.”

\--

The fire roared on, swallowing everything in its path. Loki watched, helpless, as it overtook the storage rooms and the school. The air smelled like burnt pine wood.

“The others will be safe.”

“Where else will they go? If those trees catch, there’ll be nowhere to run.”

Heimdall pursed his lips and frowned. “Trust me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I’ve known Thor since he was a boy. I helped build this place from the ground up.” He glared out into the fields, watching the fire engulf all he’d had. “My home’s in there too, you know. Built it with my own hands. We have family buried out in those woods.”

Loki lowered his head. He felt like shit.

“Tyr won’t walk away tonight.” Heimdall let out a deep breath. “Trust me on that, if nothing else.”

“You have family?”

Heimdall sighed and glanced at Loki before eyeing the barn again.

“My wife’s out in those trees, buried with my sisters. This was our home.”

“You can rebuild.”

“Old dogs like me, like Thor,” he laughed. “We don’t have the years left in us to keep rebuilding a city.”

“Heimdall, I—”

Gunfire erupted in the field, through the trees. It was so loud, Loki felt his chest shake. He brought up his own pistol just as Heimdall pushed in front of him, his own gripped tight in his hands.

“What is that? More police?” Loki asked, throat too tight.

“Follow me, boy.”

Heimdall took off through the woods, and Loki fought to keep up. Heimdall kept his gun up the whole time, but Loki couldn’t see anything. It was already getting dark—

Then Heimdall stopped, coming to a rest before raising an arm to greet a group of black-clothed figures emerging from the trees. They stepped stiff and deliberate, nothing casual about them. They wore thick vests tight over their chests and had packs strapped to their legs, knives in their boots. The inches-thick glass of their visors blurred their masks and made it hard to see where they were looking.

The shortest one stepped forward and took Heimdall’s arm in hello.

He recognized her voice and Loki felt his tongue stick in his mouth.

“Natasha?” he chirped out.

She turned to him and flipped the visor up. Two familiar eyes peered back at him. The mask she wore hid her mouth and nose, but he could tell she was smiling.

“Clint says hi.”

His knees felt weak. “What the hell is going on? What is this?” He stepped close and she slapped him on the arm. “What happened to dancer-farmer Nat?”

She snorted, eyes lit up. “Special Agent Romanov. Pleased to officially make your acquaintance, Loki. We should grab lunch when this is over.”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah. Why are you here? What is happening?”

Heimdall snorted at him and left to discuss with the others.

She finally pulled her mask down over her chin. “CIA. We’re here to take Tyr in. Thor’s gonna be just fine.”

“We need to go get him. Right now.”

“I know.”

“He was stabbed yesterday, by Tyr. Who is likely going to kill him any minute—”

“I know. We talked earlier, set this up.” She was still smiling and he wanted to believe her. “Few of ours are taking care of Tyr’s men in the field—”

A shot snapped through the trees. One of Natasha’s men collapsed to the ground, dead. She shoved Loki hard to the ground and pulled her visor down, screaming orders to her men.

He crawled along the leaves and dirt, fingers sinking through half-dried mud, and found a tree trunk to crouch behind. Gunfire whirled all around him and it felt endless. He shut his eyes and focused on Natasha shouting orders, voice high above the wildfire, the cracking of trees, the burst of gunfire, the thud of bodies hitting the ground.

Loki thought of Thor. His face, his voice, the way it felt to have his breath on his skin in the rain.

He took a breath and grabbed the pistol and stood, inching up along the tree. Natasha was across from him, ducking behind a smaller tree and shooting. He didn’t understand how she wasn’t being hit.

She fired one more shot and then there was brief silence.

“Loki!” she yelled, waving her arm without looking away from the fields. “To me!”

He didn’t think. He only ran. Her hand shot out to grab him and hold him still behind her.

“You know how to use that gun?” she asked him, sounding composed as ever.

“Yes.”

“Follow me.”

She dragged him with her at the shoulder from tree to tree. Those who were left alive from her team, she signaled to move to the field. “Surround the barn, no one makes a sound.”

Heimdall was there when they reached the barn. He nodded when he saw them and Natasha breathed out, relief clear in the set of her shoulders. She jerked her chin towards Loki.

“You’re going inside.”

“What the fuck, Nat—”

She slapped him on the cheek, enough to quiet him. He zeroed in on her. “You’re an unknown to Tyr. He doesn’t know what to make of you yet. He could think he might be able to sway you to his side.”

“I’m not going to let him shoot Thor.”

“This is how you do that.”

“He knows I’m with…that we’re together.”

Natasha trained her sight on the door, hand held steady before her. “Make him think you aren’t anymore.”

And she pushed the door open and shoved him forward. He stumbled in, hidden still by the first stable.

It smelled like shit and wet hay. He thought it should at least smell better if he was about to die. His pulse was loud in his own ears.

When he rounded the corner into the main feeding area, he saw Thor, alive and breathing hard. Then he saw Tyr standing just behind him, hand hidden at Thor’s back.

Thor shook his head just barely and Loki swallowed past his dry throat.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Loki called to him.

Thor narrowed his eyes. Tyr was nervous, shifty-eyed and jumpy. He winced at the echo in Loki’s voice through the barn rafters.

Thor’s eyes darted away. Loki traced the movement, wondering.

Thor did it again and Loki casually looked to his left.

Thor’s rifle was on the ground, thrown in the stable.

“I expected you might be looking for ‘im. You were ‘is new favorite ever since you got ‘ere.”

“I meant you,” Loki said.

Tyr made a face. “Me?”

Loki took a breath. He knew how to deal with addicts. How to appease them and make them feel special. Make an addict feel like he owned the world and everyone in it and he’d do anything.

“I realized last night, after what happened. I’d already been thinking about leaving but after your fight I really wondered why I bothered staying here in the first place? Why deal with all this useless drama?”

Thor tried calling for him and Tyr shoved whatever it was he was holding further into Thor’s back and he grimaced, in pain. He tried twisting away but Tyr wrapped a hand around his throat.

“Shut up!” Loki shouted. “I don’t want to hear whatever pathetic excuses you have.”

Something flickered across Thor’s face, his lip wavering. He kept quiet.

“Why you come ‘ere then?”

“Thor told me what you’ve got going on. I want in.”

Tyr laughed, loud and ugly. “And what is it I ‘ave going on?”

“Drug running.” Tyr licked his lips at that. “You cut in with the cops, have a redistribution scheme going on? You supply Oslo, Malmö?”

Tyr nodded after a moment. He jerked forward and Thor grimaced.

“This place has been weak for a long time. I’ve seen it,” Loki went on. “He can’t control his people. They’re running all over, bringing in new faces all the time. I can’t imagine you’d want that?”

“No, I’d rather not. Clouds the business bloody,” Tyr said emphatically. “They get nosy. Like you.”

Loki forced a smile, too wide. “My family was deep in the shit, yeah? My father ran drugs and my mother cut them. Used to pack bricks on our living room coffee table, all day long, watching soaps in the background. Made my brother push it on the streets.”

Loki saw a tear slide free down Thor’s face. Tyr didn’t notice.

“You’ve experience then? I can use experience.”

“Loads of it. I left when I was sixteen,” Loki said, the words tumbling from him, “To start my own business. Make my own way.”

That was the lie, but it was better than the truth. Tyr didn’t know the difference.

“Not like him,” Loki continued, pointing at Thor. “Thor has no clue what he’s sitting on here. It’s a safe haven, room enough to build an empire.”

“We love an entrepreneur,” Tyr drawled. He stepped back, seemingly giving Thor a little breathing room. He was grinning now. “What would you do, then? To expand the business?”

Loki couldn’t quite believe it was working but he kept on. “Can’t imagine the cops are always in line with your demands? You need to get the kids on the streets in the cities. They’ll do anything for a few dollars for food. You can’t trust pigs. You have to get messy with them. Bribes, threats to their families. Needless drama shit, right?”

Tyr howled with laughter and that’s when he let Thor go, hand sliding free from his neck. Thor’s eyes were wide, a pained sound of surprise escaping him. He cast a look to the stable, then back to Loki.

Tyr had a knife. It was better than a gun.

“Run!”

Thor leapt forward, but Tyr was too slow to catch him. Loki watched him reach into the back of his jeans and pull out a handgun.

Not better then.

Thor ducked into a stable to the right and Loki went for the rifle. He grabbed it, scrambling to heft its weight upright, cursing the size of the thing. He drew back and crouched low against the wooden wall, listening for movement.

“Come out!” Tyr screeched.

Two shots pierced the wood to the side of his head. He slid down, pulse rocketing through him. More fired into the ceiling, but the sounds started to blend together. Loki couldn’t tell where they landed anymore.

He heard the crunch of boots just outside. Thin walls. Someone yelled _Clear!_ And sailing over Loki’s head went a metal canister. The unmistakable hiss of a smoke grenade started filling the room, humid and pungent to the tongue, and Tyr started shouting all over again.

“Thor?” called Natasha, masked by Tyr’s shouting. She crouched low and found Loki where he sat slumped, rifle in hand.

“I’m here!” came Thor’s voice through the din, coughing.

“Back!”

Thor dragged himself into the hall, Loki catching sight of him. Natasha shot forward and pulled Thor the rest of the way inside, hidden from Tyr’s rage. His fist was clapped tight over one thigh, blood bright against his skin.

“Hey big guy,” Natasha said to him. Thor bumped her fist with his free hand.

“Can we please not do this right now?” Loki cried, unbelieving. “You’re hurt.”

“Bullet caught me, but it’s not serious. Are they safe?” Thor asked him. “Are the others safe?”

“Sif and Heimdall got them out. Fandral made it too.”

Thor breathed a sigh of relief, reaching up to grip Loki’s shoulder very briefly.

“Didn’t mean any of that, by the way,” Loki told him, staring as Natasha swatted Thor’s hand aside and started wrapping his thigh with a thick roll of bandage pulled from her vest.

“I know that,” Thor said, with effort. His jaw clenched the more Natasha pulled at him.

White smoke started billowing into the stable around them and Natasha motioned for them to stay quiet.

“Thor’s with you, get him outside,” she said, quiet. “I’ll—”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?” Thor barked through a whisper.

“I mean,” Loki whispered back, wrenching his eyes away from Thor’s leg. “He’s mine. I’m not letting him get away with this.”

Natasha watched the two of them, staying curiously silent through everything.

“What? You’re telling me you know how to use that thing all of a sudden?” Thor snapped at him.

“I know how to protect what’s mine, too, Thor.”

Thor glowered.

“Thor’s on me, then,” Natasha finally said, the decision made for them. She hoisted her hands under Thor’s arms and braced herself to move. “You’re in no shape to fight right now, don’t contradict me,” she demanded.

Thor reached out and grabbed the barrel of the rifle. Loki held tight.

“You die tonight, Loki, that’s on me.”

“That’s not your choice,” Loki hissed at him, repeating the words Thor had said to him.

“Don’t do that. Why are you doing this, Loki?” Thor asked, begging him in so many words.

“I’m doing what I must for you to survive. Go.”

Thor closed his mouth and before he could say anything more, Natasha was dragging him away.

The last he saw was Thor’s bewildered stare, panicked, disappearing through the smoke.

\--

Loki heaved a breath and ducked into the hall, bathed in smoke. It clogged his nose and throat and he felt on the edge of choking with every breath but he fought it down. He had to focus. Had to breathe. Had to end it.

He couldn’t hear Tyr anymore. He’d gone worryingly silent after Thor had been dragged out by Natasha. Loki stepped as lightly as he could, feeling his joints creak with how slowly he moved.

A rush of steps and then Tyr was on him, tackling him to the floor. Tyr was yelling, cursing him between clenched teeth, spit flying everywhere. He was trying to wrestle the gun away from Loki. He held on for his life, determined not to let Tyr grab his one lifeline.

Tyr threw a fist into Loki’s side and he hissed, feeling cold sink deep under his ribs. It was slow. It was ice all over, shattering across his skin, but he found the strength to kick Tyr away. He rolled back and coughed, slamming his fists on the floor as Loki reeled back, hands shaking and eyes wide.

Loki palmed at his ribs, frantic. He found the hilt of the knife sticking out from his side and he laughed, incredulous, looking down at the sight of it just stuck there. Like a coat rack.

Tyr got to his feet and went back for it, and Loki gasped as he slung the blade from his flesh. Loki felt lightheaded, wanted to close his eyes—

Loki gasped out hot blood, swung the rifle up, found the trigger with fumbling fingers, and pulled.

\--

He was being carried. Or he was floating. He saw that once in a movie too. He tried to look underneath him to see if he was hovering over a field of wheat.

“Don’t move, kid,” came a stern voice above him.

Loki blinked up and saw a handsome blond man looking down at him. The man threw him an easy smile before glancing back up.

“Name’s Rogers. Nat told me you’re one of Thor’s?”

“Is he alive?”

“You just worry about yourself right now, okay?”

“Is Thor alive?”

Rogers clicked his tongue. “Yeah, he’s just fine, kid. You gotta worry about yourself now. Nat tells me you’re from New York? I’m from Brooklyn, myself. What about you? Hey, hey. Stay awake, okay. Can’t have you falling asleep on me. Soldiers don’t sleep.”

“That’s unhealthy,” Loki muttered up to him.

His eyes were slipping closed. Rogers laughed, a lilting, pleasant sound. Loki was tired. Exhausted. Thor was safe. He just wanted to sleep.

“You got a point. I’m fond of a nap or two here and there. Hey, kid? Don’t you pass out on me. Dammit. Nat! Natasha! Get Bruce!”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to the playlist here: https://8tracks.com/mrhiddles/deep-black-wild-thorki-cult-au
> 
> Art by the lovely kamthe here!: http://kamthe.tumblr.com/post/179444141366/im-participating-in-thorki-big-bang-this-year-and
> 
> Check out my fandom Tumblr (I'm also happy to answer more specific questions there!): https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mrhiddles
> 
> \--
> 
> Thank you everyone for reading! It's weird to finally be finished with this, but I still am considering turning it into it's own fully fleshed out novel. The response has been wonderful and I look forward to hearing what you think of the ending!
> 
> More Thorki stories coming very soon!

Loki woke up in a white hospital room. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His head pounded, and his abdomen felt like it was on fire.

The fire. Thor. Stabbed.

Loki ran his fingers over his lips, checking for the blood he remembered coughing up. Nothing. His vitals chirped behind him, loud in the quiet.

His vision focused and he saw Sif in the corner, asleep in a chair. Natasha was standing by the door, arms crossed and watching him.

She went to his side when he sent her a weak wave.

“You’re back in New York,” she told him quietly. She smoothed his hair from his head. “Thor’s alive and doing well.”

Loki squinted up at her. The important questions out of the way, he said, “You’re a spy.”

“I’m a contracted agent with the CIA, but sure.” She smiled down at him. “Call me what you want.”

“Tell me what that was, in the woods. Showing up in a helicopter? That was you, right?”

“Yeah, that was us.” She sat on the edge of the bed by his waist and didn’t look away from him. “I’ve been working with Thor for years. We’d been trying to get Tyr for a long time.”

“What took you so long?”

“These things are complicated.”

“Not so complicated when you’re being stabbed.”

“Sorry about that. Bruce patched you up. He’s the medic on our team. Good guy, big heart, hates people. You’d like him.”

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “Rogers was pretty hot.”

“I’ll let Steve know you said so,” she rasped, smiling.

“You sure Thor’s going to be okay?”

Natasha nodded. “He’s out by the lobby. I made him get some air. He hasn’t left your side for days.”

“How long has it been?”

“Five days. Thor only got cleared to fly here after two.”

“Are the others safe?”

“Every one.”

Loki blinked and couldn’t control the way his breath shuddered out.

“I have some questions for you,” he told her.

“Shoot.”

“You’re Russian?”

“Yes.”

“Your real name is Nadine?”

“It was before I changed it. I was always called Nat growing up, though.”

“You really dance ballet?”

“Everything I told you on the farm was the truth.”

“But they taught you more, there? At your school?”

“They did. A lot of things. Things I don’t like to talk about.”

“Clint knows?”

“Now he does. I told him when we got back. He wants to use me as a reference when he transfers out of the force.” She hummed, quiet and fond.

“Are we friends?”

Her smile lingered and he felt so young then, with the way she was looking at him.

“I think we are.”

“Who was Barnes?”

The smile finally fell away.

“He was a good kid. Died too young. He knew Rogers, they were like brothers. We were all kids back then.”

“You’re not much older than me,” Loki reminded her.

“I feel older, though.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

He sniffed. “One more.”

“Okay.”

“Why’d you let me go for Tyr, in the end?”

Natasha moved her hair behind an ear. “When I handed you my knife in the woods, that was half of a test. I needed to know if you could handle a high-pressure situation.”

“You knew this was going to happen?”

“Not the details. But one day, I knew something would break. I knew how you felt about Thor, and I needed to know I could trust you to protect him if I was bound to other responsibilities. I needed to know you could protect yourself. I wasn’t letting another kid die on my watch.”

“You destroyed me in the woods, though.”

“But it told me you were a good kid. Willful. An asshole, but I already knew that when I met you. You don’t want to hurt anything if you don’t have to. That was the second part of the test. To see if you were cruel for the sake of cruelty.”

“You could have just asked me.”

Natasha snorted. “Not very dynamic though, is it?”

Loki sighed and reached up to scratch at his scalp. “I’ll have to give you a raincheck on that lunch date.”

Natasha laughed, probably too loud.

“Hospital food counts, doesn’t it?” she asked, voice cheerful despite her shining eyes.

\--

Natasha sat with him for a long time, keeping him busy with small talk. She asked him about school and politics, and art and music and movies. Anything to steer his thoughts away from Bilskirnir and he was thankful for it. Sif slept away and it made Loki wonder how long she’d stayed awake before finally crashing.

But then he saw Thor hesitate in the doorway.

“I can come back—” he started, hands resting at his pockets before hanging limp again. He looked awkward and Loki could tell he was nervous.

Natasha got up and shook her head. “I was just leaving.”

Loki snorted, knowing she’d been with him for over an hour by that point.

Natasha gave Thor a hug before whispering something to him that Loki couldn’t make out. Thor nodded, mouth set in a hard line. He patted her cheek and Loki felt like he was witnessing a private moment. He felt like an intruder in his own hospital room.

“I’m gonna go find Clint,” she said before rounding the door, out of sight.

Thor finally went to his side, a slight limp plaguing his gate, and hovered there, looking shy. His lips twitched oddly, holding back whatever it was he wanted to say. Loki couldn’t stand it.

“We match,” Loki commented.

“Huh?” Thor raised a brow.

“We both got stabbed in the same spot by the same lunatic,” Loki told him. “We match.”

Thor rubbed a hand over his face, made a sound halfway between a sigh and laugh. “Guess we do.”

“How’s your leg?”

Thor shrugged and lifted his leg a little, bent his knee. “Lucky it missed everything important.”

“Sit down.”

Thor did, seeming careful not press any weight on Loki at all. He didn’t even touch him. Loki frowned and reached for his hand.

“Don’t be stupid. What’s wrong?” Loki asked him.

Thor stared out at the monitors. Loki’s blood pressure was a little low and he knew Thor was assessing every little number, piecing out why and what it meant for him.

“I let you get hurt. This is my fault,” Thor murmured, almost too quiet to hear.

“It was my choice. That thing you kept telling me I had to make.”

Thor just shook his head, ever persisting in blaming himself. Loki had never met someone so fixated on carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Loki held his hand tighter.

“Did I kill him?” he asked, because that was the big question. The one he’d held back from asking Natasha.

Thor slid his eyes back to Loki’s. “No.”

Loki couldn’t help the little mumble of relief that slipped out of him then. Thor squeezed his hand tight for a quick moment. Loki hadn’t allowed himself to think past the question, if the answer had been yes. He didn’t know what it would mean, and secretly, he was glad he didn’t have to find out.

“What happened to him?”

“Heimdall finished it,” Thor told him. That did surprise Loki. “He asked me, when they brought you out and got you in the air. I told him to do what he felt was right.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed. “And Natasha just let him?”

Thor squeezed his hand again, his palm too dry.

“Nat’s restless, like I said. She was younger than you when she came to us. She didn’t expect to fall in love and her priorities shifted, I think. But she was already working with her unit, so when she came to me, we made a partnership. She was originally sent to find out if we were a threat. Cults—that odd word—and all they come with, right? But she realized it wasn’t anything sinister.” Thor paused and scratched at his beard with his free hand. “Then we started watching Tyr, and she reported back to her people. Everything that was going on with him became the focus.”

“And then when Barnes died, she left?”

“She went and expanded with Fandral in the states. Couldn’t stand to be here after Barnes died, and Tyr was acting cagey. There was a while where he started to suspect he was being watched, so Natasha left. She ended up staying abroad for longer than I would have liked, but Tyr was worsening by the day. It wasn’t safe for her here. But if she hadn’t stayed in New York, she never would have found you and your friends.”

Loki bit down a smile, looking at the crepey sheets covering his legs.

“Why New York?”

“When I lived in Kentucky, I didn’t stay there. I travelled around, and never got to spend as much time in New York as I’d have liked. The country was gorgeous though, and reminded me of home. So that’s why.” Thor leaned forward on his elbows, Loki’s hand held to the bend of his neck. “I felt lonely, when I lived in this country. There’s an emptiness to a lot of people here. I thought if the ones who were a good fit found our farm, maybe I could put a little meaning back into life for them.”

“You’re a bleeding heart,” Loki told him, meeting his eyes again.

“As you’ve told me before.” Thor smiled. “But anyway, Natasha. She’ll always have a home with us, wherever we are. She knew the risk. But she let Heimdall do what needed to be done. Just like she let you stay behind. For me,” he added, soft.

“I forgive you. You know, if you’re blaming yourself. For all that happened.”

Thor pulled a hand away to wipe at his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“You can’t apologize for something already forgiven.”

“Stop being clever.” He smiled a watery smile. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

“Now you know how it feels,” Loki told him, placing a hand on Thor’s thigh, over where he’d been shot. Thor bent forward to kiss his forehead, his cheek, finally his mouth. Warmth spread through him. “I never want you to stop touching me.”

“I think we’d eventually wake Sif. I don’t want to give her a heart attack.”

Loki huffed. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing she’s caught me doing.”

“Loki.”

“What?”

Thor palmed his face, held him close.

“Thank you. For sharing the burden, for a while.”

Thor bent his head, hair spilling over Loki’s shoulder. He murmured something quiet, and Loki couldn’t tell if it was a prayer or not. But he raised a hand to Thor’s head and felt him shiver, shoulders shaking only barely.

“You showed me what a home could be,” he said, serious. “You should know it’s not all on you, all the time. To make the hard decisions.”

Thor raised his head and Loki saw something new there, something he couldn’t name.

“And I told you you didn’t have to use that gun.” Loki pulled his ear, tone light. “What happened to it, anyway?”

It worked to dispel the intensity in Thor’s stare.

“I broke it down and tossed the pieces to the wind.”

“Romantic.”

Thor cleared his throat. “I went to the old woods. Where I grew up. I found the lake I used to play with Balder on. I’d take him out on the ice in the winter, used these half-thought skates that were just broken branches tied to our shoes. I let the water take the rifle, like it took Balder.”

“I’m proud of you, Thor.”

Thor let out a held breath, tickling Loki’s cheek. “Me too.”

\--

Sif woke up to them kissing. She yawned and stretched and said:

“Gross. I’m getting coffee.”

\--

“How old are you, anyway?” Loki asked him a few days later, sore but otherwise whole. Hospital staff had wheeled him to the curb of the hospital intake, told him no smoking, and left.

“I didn’t tell you?”

“Nope,” Loki said, squinting against the sun.

Thor hummed, tilting his head this way and that, making a show of thinking about his answer.

“Thirty-eight.”

“Such a dad.”

Thor huffed a laugh and elbowed him in the arm. “You’ve got to stop with that.”

“Or what?”

Thor sent him a dark look. He smirked. “I’ll spank you.”

“How liberating.”

Sif pulled up with her car, waving at them through the traffic.

“Don’t sound so excited,” Thor said.

“Just been there, done that is all. Got any other ideas?”

Thor thought for a moment while Loki climbed into the backseat. Thor climbed in next to him and Sif started prattling away about all the things they needed to take care of, rent, food, hospital bills—

“How about,” Thor whispered to him. “Lunch?”

Loki laughed. “Sounds good to me.”

\--

Thor stayed with them the first few nights, content to follow Loki wherever he went. The first night they all went out to dinner and Sif got a little too drunk for Thor to be comfortable with. He drove them back and they got Sif situated in her own bed, where she passed out in under a minute.

It was strange, seeing Thor inhabit their little space. He took in the messy kitchen and the dishes and said nothing. Took in their too-small corner bathroom, more a cubby than anything else, and had no complaints after showering. When Loki ushered him into his own room, Thor quietly took in his movie collection and books. He ran his fingers over everything, reading them one by one while Loki changed for bed.

He was already lying down when Thor finally pulled something from his shelf. He flipped it open, careful and slow and started reading a worn little thing Loki hadn’t touched in years.

“Those books are the only things I took with me when I left home. Sif let me keep them at her place.”

“Must’ve taken years.” Thor hummed, pleasant in the silence. He leaned back against the headboard of Loki’s bed and flipped another page. Loki finally saw the cover, _McCarthy_.

“Didn’t know you liked him,” Loki said, wondering.

“Vicious stuff,” Thor said after another page.

Loki watched him, the sweep of his lashes, the pink of his lips as they moved almost imperceptibly along with the words he read, the red tips of his ears, the mess of his long hair, golden all along his skin, the little freckles Loki was allowed to touch.

Loki slung an arm over Thor’s waist, closed his eyes and breathed in deep, smelling the earthy scent of him. Thor turned another page and dropped a warm hand over Loki’s shoulders, gentle. His thumb swept a little pattern across his skin.

“Vicious stuff indeed,” Loki muttered back to him, already slipping away to sleep.

\--

The second night, Loki rolled into him, gently slotting his leg between Thor’s thighs.

“You’re healing. We can’t.”

“I’ve waited years. And besides, so are you.”

“It’s been a few weeks, not years.”

“Feels like years, though,” Loki insisted with a frown.

“You’re impossible,” Thor grumbled but instructed him to lie back. Loki listened.

Thor kissed down his chest, his stomach, over his bandage and scar, down to his waist and the spill of his hips. He nosed Loki through his shorts and he was hard in moments.

“I want more, tonight.”

“I know. You’re greedy.”

Loki huffed, hands raking gentle through Thor’s long hair to encourage him back up. “Just been waiting a long time for something like this. For someone like you.”

Thor glanced up at him, and Loki warmed from the intensity of the way Thor was looking at him. The same look from the hospital that made his arms quake and his heart stutter.

Thor slipped his shorts off and away, groaned when Loki reached down and grabbed him, feeling how heavy he was in his hand. He kicked off his own sweats and pressed along Loki’s side, all heat and smooth skin, the weight of him pressing pleasant atop Loki’s thigh.

Loki reached for his night stand, but Thor got there first. He dug around and teased him when he found the lube. Poured it onto his fingers and gripped Loki, slicking him.

“Not me, you.”

“Both of us,” Thor murmured, soft. He snuck a hand down and traced a line along the center of him and pressed, firm, Loki rocking his hips back.

It was slow going, and it hurt. It had been a while. But Loki clung tight to Thor’s arms, his shoulders, his neck. Loved the way he moaned long and quiet, just for Loki to hear. Loved the way Thor drove him slow into the bed, felt the sweat slick on their stomachs as they moved. It felt overwhelming, felt like not enough and Loki clung tighter, not wanting it to end. He wanted Thor to fill him endlessly, always.

Thor dug his nose into Loki’s cheek, pressed a kiss there and whispered his name.

After, Thor moved down his body, kissed him clean, licking away his spend. Nuzzled his flushed face in the hair under Loki’s arms and again at his crotch, hands everywhere all at once, overwhelming, comforting. Safe. Thor sucked him down twice more before he relented finally, to the exhausted gasps of Loki above him.

“You’re the filthiest person I’ve ever met,” Loki barely managed to say. “And I fucking love you.”

Thor laughed and laughed.

\--

When a week passed, Loki knew what was coming.

“I have to go back. Check the damage. See what we can do to rebuild,” Thor said when they were out by the water. Loki had wanted to show him the Statue of Liberty because Thor had told him he’d missed it the first time he visited the city.

“I know,” Loki said, because he did. Had been expecting it. Hoped the words would hurt less than they did.

“I’ll come back.”

Loki only smiled, held Thor’s hand.

“I know that too.”

“Fandral’s coming with me.”

Loki hummed. “I thought Sif was in a bad mood this morning.”

“It’ll be a little while, but I know his heart is here. He has his farm, and I trust him with it.”

“Sif will be happy to know that.” He was trying hard not to let any emotion in his voice. Couldn’t let Thor think he was disappointing him. It wasn’t on him.

“She is. I promised I’d have Fandral back in three months tops.”

Thor leaned over the railing, the cool breeze blowing his hair. He squinted up at Loki beside him.

“You could come back with me,” Thor suggested as he searched Loki’s face, the words spilling out of him easily. Like it was the most casual thing in the world. But Loki knew better. Knew what Thor meant. Knew what he was asking.

He didn’t know if he was ready.

“I have some stuff to figure out here.” Loki turned and leaned back against the rails himself. “I need some time to process everything that happened, I think.”

Thor nodded and looked out to the water. “I’m a phone call away.”

Loki leaned into him. “I am too.”

\--

Two months passed slow, Loki knew that. But the chaos of the few weeks he’d spent in Norway had seemed both endless and too quick and he wondered how that had happened. Time was shifty all of a sudden. One week it felt like he’d turned sixteen days before and then the next week he felt like it had been years since he’d met Thor. Young and old at once, and he had to remind himself some days where he was, where he woke up. Blink at the texture of his walls in the morning to remind himself that yes, he was back in the states. No, he wasn’t with Thor.

He tried to go back to school. But it wasn’t in him anymore. He knew his place was with Thor. But the thought of going back to the compound turned his stomach in a strange way. So he couldn’t do that either. He filled out job applications and blew off more interviews than he attended.

He spent a lot of time with Clint and Sif. Clint loved the academy and rarely stopped talking about it. Sif poured herself into her degree, spending just as much time on the phone with Fandral as Clint spent gushing.

Natasha wasn’t around as much as before, but then he got a call one day inviting him to lunch.

_Think I can cash in that raincheck?_

_Please do. Save me from the monotony of the day to day._

_Ah, then I’ll bring the helicopter._

_Perfect :)_

He met her that weekend in Manhattan, a ritzy place he couldn’t afford. When he asked for water and if the bread had free refills, Sif ordered him steak and a beer. They didn’t card him.

“How have things been?” she asked. Her engagement ring glinted across from him. A simple metal band, thin and sleek.

Loki shrugged. “Turned twenty last week.”

“Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

“ _Ypa!_ ” She sipped at her cocktail. “Clint never mentioned it. You should have a party.”

“I don’t like celebrating it much. Sif just gets me my favorite whiskey and we watch Star Wars and leave it at that.”

“Which ones?”

“Prequels.”

“Good tradition,” she said, smiling into her drink.

“He did something, for me.”

“Thor?”

“Yeah. Well, not directly I don’t think. Because I know he doesn’t have the money. But I went to pay my first hospital bill a couple weeks back and it was taken care of. All of it. The debt is gone.”

Natasha swirled her glass around. “I wonder who did that.”

Loki leaned forward in his seat. “Was it you? And your fancy piles of government money?”

She covered her mouth and snorted a laugh. “You’re so dramatic. Ever think how it would look to leave a paper trail? After what happened? We tried to contain the news of the fire to the local area. Wiped the tapes of flyovers done by news channels so the compound wasn’t compromised. Took care of the police who were there that night—and their transfers to other cities.” She stopped, making a point. “Your hospital bills, as well as Thor’s, and Fandral’s—a drop in a large ocean.”

Loki licked his lips. “Thank you? I guess?”

“Thank my boss. Fury gets shit done.”

Loki swallowed down a mouthful of beer. It went down too hard and he winced. He wanted a whiskey.

“I talk to Thor a lot, but he hasn’t told me much about what’s going on over there.”

“It bothers you is why,” Natasha told him, matter of fact. “He doesn’t want to stress you.”

“Only kind of.”

“A lot, actually.” She glanced around the dining room. “Why?”

“It was kind of a crazy few weeks, wouldn’t you say?”

“But it was the best few weeks of your life.” She set her drink down. “I’m right.”

“Why are you so sure of yourself?” Loki asked her, hushed. He stared down at his beer, knew she was right.

“Because it was the same for me. So why are you pushing it away?”

“I’m not pushing it away.”

“You’re pushing Thor away.”

Their food came and Loki held his tongue. Stuffed his mouth with bloody beef instead.

“You love him but you won’t go with him. But you want to.” Natasha stuck a fork into the pasta she ordered. “Why is that?”

He blinked across at her. “Those woods terrify me.” His hands itched, so he gripped his knife and fork up, too tight. “They’re dark and full of things I don’t want to think about. The fight with you. Being left alone and finding Thor stabbed. The fucking—” he lowered his voice. “Shootout with your spooks.”

Natasha’s lips wobbled, looked like she was trying not to smile.

“The politically correct term is goon squad, thank you,” she said, amused. “And you should think about what happened there. Process it. Navigate it.”

Loki set down his silverware and shook his head. “You know why I can’t go back. Walking into that place is impossible. I keep having nightmares about the animals on fire.”

She hummed. “I went back.”

“And look how that turned out.”

“You’re right. I got to show Clint the place that changed my life. I got to show him Bucky’s grave. I got to see Thor again after years of feeling like one of my best friends was missing. I got to be annoyed by Fandral calling me Nadine again. I got to eat Thor’s terrible cooking. I got to see some asshole kid from New York fall in love with someone who deserves everything good in the world, and realize he’s not so empty as he thinks.”

Loki couldn’t speak.

“I suppose the worst thing out of all that is that now I have to sit here and listen to that kid’s excuses for breaking Thor’s heart.” She shrugged.

“That’s not fair.”

“Is anything?”

Loki sighed and drank his beer.

“You can go back. Help Thor make it better.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You can help him make something new. You’re a part of that place now. You say you can’t face what it was. So transform it into something you can face going forward.”

“How?”

She ate another bite of pasta, talked with her mouth full. “I texted him last week suggesting yellow paint in the kitchen to freshen it up. That he should add a second floor to the housing so it doesn’t feel so cramped all the time. I’m not much of a designer though.”

“Did he listen?”

She snorted and pulled out her phone. “We argued about paint colors for two days but in the end he went with the yellow.”

She handed him her phone and Loki took it. It was a picture of the kitchens, the equipment pulled out, paint buckets on tarps on the floor. Natasha reached over and flipped through to the next picture and there it was, finished, yellow walls shiny and new and pretty like Natasha thought they’d be.

“Did it burn?”

“No. Planes were brought in and our helicopter, they doused it. It was out by morning. The damage was to the fields and barns, the newer housing. Some of the surrounding forest. The rebuilding will take longer but he owns the land, so wood isn’t hard to get.”

“That’s good.”

“Loki,” she said, taking her phone back. “He wants you with him. You want to be with him. He needs help making a home there. His home.”

“His house was destroyed?” Loki asked, feeling his throat close.

“Yeah. We lost a lot over there. But the point I’m trying to make, Loki, is that he can cut down some trees if he wants. Find that spot in the woods where he fought with Tyr. Clear it out. Build something good there. Something useful. Maybe a new hospital or school or something.”

“He can do whatever he wants?”

She nodded. “But he can’t do anything without you.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“I know him. He tries to hide it but I can tell. He misses you.” She frowned down at her food. “He’s off when we talk sometimes, like his mind’s in another place. This hit him hard.”

“Tear down the barn,” he muttered, wondering.

“Hm?”

“We could tear down the barn. Where I shot Tyr.”

Natasha clinked her cocktail against his beer, sound ringing bright.

“Now you’re talking.”

\--

Loki caught Sif at night. She was bent low over a stack of papers, red pen circling furiously. Her laptop and tablet were both open, glaringly bright in the low light. Her hair was pushed wildly into a bun and when she noticed him and turned, he saw the bags under her eyes.

He checked to see if the little wooden sheep she’d put on her desk was still there. It was.

“When’s the last time you slept, you look terrible,” he told her. He sat on her bed and drew his legs up.

She grumbled at him and kept circling. “Thirty-six hours ago, I think? Maybe a little less? This project is kicking my ass.”

“You need to take a break.”

“I _need_ to keep busy,” she snapped at him. “Sorry. Shit, sorry.” She rubbed a palm over her face. “If I don’t keep busy, I lose focus. And I end up calling Fandral.”

“And you end up missing him?”

“I get sad now. I don’t do that, Loki. I don’t get sad. I get angry. I get drunk. Then I sleep and do it again the next day.”

“I see you texting him all the time though?”

“I need to be doing four things at once, otherwise I start thinking about how I haven’t seen him in….in—however long it’s been.” She sat up and sunk down in her seat, spinning around to face him.

“What’s new with you?” she asked him, forlorn.

He picked at his thumb. “I want to go see Thor.”

“I thought you had a job interview?”

Loki didn’t answer right away and she sunk down impossibly lower in her chair.

“You’re not going, are you?”

“Do I look like I’d make a good Super Duper Burger boy?”

She smirked. “Well, when you say it like that. You don’t want the free lunches?”

He shifted and sat against the back wall, legs stretched out in front of him.

“I want to go see Thor, Sif.”

“You miss him too.”

“Yeah.”

“God, we’re sorry sacks of shit, aren’t we?”

“Just a little,” he agreed.

Sif slipped to the floor and then crawled onto the bed beside him, on her stomach. She folded her arms underneath her chin and breathed out, puffing on the hair falling in her face.

“You’re really going to leave this time, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

He didn’t insult her by denying it.

“You’re dumb if you think I won’t come and visit you and Clint and Natasha all the time.”

“Even Natasha? Really?”

“She’s alright. I like her.”

Sif looked betrayed. She swung out and punched his thigh. “You’re a traitor. Disgusting.”

“You can always visit there too. With Fandral, after he comes back.”

Sif thought seriously for a moment. “I could swing it during winter break. But that’s another decision for after I graduate.”

“You’d consider moving there?”

“Whoa, cowboy. Like I said, a decision for another day. But it was nice,” she said. “I ended up really enjoying our time there. You know, minus the shootout and the fire.”

“It was pretty cool, you have to admit.”

Sif flipped onto her back, giving him a funny look.

“Sometimes Loki,” she breathed, shutting her eyes. “You should keep your opinions to yourself.”

He waited a beat, wondering if she’d fallen asleep.

“But I was really fucking good with that knife.” She grinned. “I’ll have to show you one day.”

\--

Loki called Thor when he got out of customs a few days later. He pulled his sunglasses off, peered out into the cloudy sky as he waited for Thor to pick up. It rang on and on and on and Loki wondered what Thor was doing.

Finally he answered, sounding breathless and Loki could tell he was smiling.

“Hey there. How’d the interview go?”

“Didn’t go,” Loki told him, his chest feeling fluttery.

He could picture Thor frowning at that. “What happened?”

“I’m in Oslo.”

“Huh?”

“Come pick me up.” And he hung up.

His phone immediately started ringing again. He answered and laughed.

“Sorry, I panicked.”

\--

Loki spotted Thor’s pickup far off in the parking lot, bright red and shining in the light rain that started some fifteen minutes earlier. Thor screeched into a parking spot and Loki could see his arms flailing as he whipped the seatbelt off.

Thor hopped out and shut his door, started jogging towards the drop off area. Loki held his arms out and let Thor sweep him up, holding him close, legs dangling. Thor placed him back on the ground and kissed him through his laughter.

“Happy late birthday!”

“Natasha told you?” Loki asked, following him as they hurried to the truck.

“Sif actually. After you called I called her and asked if she knew you were here.”

“I was very responsible about it. I have her blessing.”

They climbed into the car and Thor just sat there, looking at him. Like he wasn’t real.

“You look like you’re thinking too hard,” Loki told him.

“You’re staying?”

His voice sounded so small and Loki felt his neck heat. He wanted to hold Thor, whisper apologies to him. Wanted to ask for his forgiveness, despite already having it. He knew that.

“I’m not leaving you again,” Loki told him, easy. “I tried it out and didn’t like it.”

Thor’s grin turned watery, so he turned his key and headed for the road.

\--

Loki stayed awake through the drive. He’d missed it going in and coming out and this time, he told himself, he was going to remember every detail.

The trees looked the same. The sky was still cloudy. The road turned off into dirt and soon enough Loki knew where they were.

“It looks different,” Thor told him when he parked. There weren’t as many cars as before.

“Change is good.”

“It is,” he said, sounding something like relieved. “Come on.”

Things looked fine until they moved past Loki’s old cabin, the kitchens looking much the same as they had when he left. Loki complimented him on the new paint and Thor huffed at the mention of Natasha. The ground slowly bled to black, a stark stain where little patches of grass had started to sprout up new every few yards.

The school was gone. The hospital was half torn down but the foundations and much of the walls were still left. A large swatch of forest was missing, twisting grey trunks cracked all over, piercing the clouds, or fallen altogether in black ashy stumps. The land where Thor’s cabin and much of the fields had been were gone too, cleared away. It was worse the farther they walked.

Loki stood at the edge of what used to be Thor’s home and wiped at his nose. His eyes. Stared down at the thick shadowed edge of where the foundation had lain.

Thor came up behind him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“Hope you don’t mind I’ve been sleeping in your bed.”

Loki met his eyes. Saw the goofy smile he loved so much.

“I guess I’m okay with that,” he teased, hoping his voice sounded steadier than he thought.

\--

They turned the soil and waited a season before planting anything new. Most of the greenhouses were thankfully still standing, and they harvested like they usually would. They cut down dead trees and hauled away the decay left from the fire. Cabins were slowly being built back up, neat little rows of lego-like frames one day, and the next there’d be a handful finished, and then another after that.

People started moving back in and Freyja took care of much of the planning for it, Frey her shadow. She made tents, massive things sewn together so those who came back could sleep in the same place.

“Close to the ground, close to the heart,” she’d tell him, and Loki didn’t really know what she meant, but it felt better to hear it anyway.

It was in the tents he saw Skadi returned with her parents, happy to see her favorite tutor and even giving Loki a hug. He supposed she was just happy there was something to come back to, even if it was just the bare bones of what it used to be.

Heimdall outfitted his security shack into something of a small fortress, fingerprint entry and all. He got an eye scanner for the few weapons they kept that he was very excited about, in his own way. Loki caught him facetiming Sif more than once, catching each other up on the day to day, and in one strange case, gossiping about Fandral.

Fandral fenced off much of the open areas edged by the forest, not wanting to worry about having to block an entrance to anything again. Not long after Loki arrived did Fandral announce he’d bought tickets back to New York. Back to Sif. They cooked a whole pig to celebrate before he left, but he was back to claiming he was a vegetarian. There was food and music and a campfire under the stars of a cold Norwegian sky, and it reminded him of the first night he’d met Fandral. He asked Fandral to show him how to carve wood, and he did, walking him through the basics. He left him his knife and told him to practice.

Over the following months, Thor listened to Loki’s suggestions eagerly. They cleaned out the warehouse and gave it a face lift, fitted dedicated stereos inside and new lights for the roof. They tore down the barn and planned a new one, farther back in the field. It would be bigger, fit more animals. With the badgering of Natasha, a section of the new housing was saved for two storied cabins. Heimdall claimed the first one, closest to the forest.

Loki went to Heimdall not long after he went back, feeling uncertain and bristling at the first sight of the man’s familiar severe face. But when he heard what Loki was there for, he agreed surprisingly easily.

Heimdall said they’d use old wood and new stones for it. They used the same land, the earth already growing over where trees had been. The scorched markers had already been cleared away and, in their place, someone had left new wooden beams jutting from the earth. Loki read the names until he found the one he wanted.

He carved the best cross he could, picked out the roundest stones to surround it. Scratched a name into the grooves of the wood, with particular runes Heimdall suggested, and sent Natasha a picture when the sun was low enough to cast long shadows along the ground.

It didn’t take long for her to call him.

“Bucky would have loved it,” Natasha had told him. “I have to show it to Rogers.”

“I’m sorry, Nat. For all that happened here, to you. To all of you.”

Loki heard sniffling on the other end of the line. Then, “To you too. It’s your home now too. Has been for a long time.”

“I came back,” he said, thinking of the lunch they'd had. “I’m glad I came back.”

Natasha was quiet for so long he would have thought she’d hung up if he couldn’t hear the slow pace of her breath.

“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks, kid.”

\--

Loki took Thor through the woods one morning, a surprise.

They walked for a long time and Thor caught on soon enough.

“I think I know where you’re taking me.”

“No guesses,” Loki insisted.

When they reached the spot he’d found Thor collapsed in so many months before, he stopped and let Thor wonder for a long while about what they were doing there.

“You asked me once about the worst day of my life,” Loki started.

“It wasn’t day,” Thor said and Loki nodded.

“That was nothing compared to seeing you here. Thinking you were gone. Thinking I’d never hear your voice again.”

Thor stepped close, looking something shy of confused.

“Why are we here, Loki?”

“Part of this section of forest is already cleared out. But I think we should clear out this part too. Maybe an acre or two.”

“And do what with it?”

Loki turned to him and said, “Build a new home. For us. Together.”

Thor’s mouth wavered. “We’d live out here? This land isn’t ruined for you?”

“I saw you when you were leading me through here. You love it. Love nature, like it’s a part of you. I think it is. It’s your favorite part of all this, isn’t it? The trees, the dirt, the sky, the smell in the air, the storms. The animals. Natasha told me once about how to honor an animal when you kill it. You have to make it mean something.”

“She’s right.”

“You taught her all that, didn’t you?”

He could see Thor’s throat work, trying for words, and Loki knew it was the truth.

“We can build a path leading here, so it’s not so perilous. But it’s private. And it’s beautiful. And you love it out here, despite what happened. You stepped into these woods today like it was nothing.”

“This is my home. The good and the bad that comes through, it’s all part of it.”

Loki nodded. “Then it’s settled,” he said, easy like all the other choices they’d made together had been. “We make this spot mean something. Something better.”

Thor grabbed his wrist. “Loki.”

Loki waited. Thor placed his palm on Loki’s chest, closed his eyes for a long moment. When he finally looked at him, Loki shivered.

“You’re really here to stay? With me?” Thor asked him, quiet and careful.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Loki murmured up to him. “Isn’t that what you told me?”

Thor’s fingers curled against his shirt.

“Thank you, Loki.”

Loki covered Thor’s hand with his own.

“Anytime, Thor.”


End file.
